Black Serendipity
by opopanax
Summary: AU. When Al Potter becomes interested in the dark, deadly past of an old man in the neighboring town, it seems to be a hidden catalyst which brings to light many buried demons in the seemingly tranquil lives of the Potters. Will the family survive, or will it destruct? Complete.
1. Chapter 1

Black Serendipity

By Opopanax

Introduction

First the formal stuff.

What follows is basically a retelling of one of my favourite Stephen King stories—a novelisation of a novel, if you can dig that.. Mister King's "constant readers" will no doubt recognise the foundation upon which this story is built. I have added enough of my own material to make it stand out in and of itself, and I think it is pretty good..

As is usual with me, I have played fast and loose with things like geography and accuracy of historical events. It's my story, and in my story I am God, so what I say goes. If I want to say that the Prime Minister wears fuzzy hats and attends political rallies dressed as Bozo the Clown, then he'll show up in greasepaint!

The only warning I will give here is that, if you are expecting light and fluff, hit the back button. I also left a lot unsaid; this story is a character-driven story, not a magic-based one. So there is only enough magic background given to provide a setting. The rest is pretty unimportant.

And finally, since this story is being posted complete, please save reviews for the end. Thank you very much.

Now, for the personal stuff.

I think this might be the last fanFic I write. For a while, or forever—I just don't know. I think I have just about run out of things to say in this area. I can't promise a sequel to my other story up here this summer, but I will try to get it done at some point.

I do have ideas, but they're all pretty weird and far out; I'm not sure they'd go across very well. I had an idea about time travel. Suppose magic is the result of future humanity going back in time and injecting alterations into the first human females so that magic gets bred into the race? Or what if Harry had to find the First Wand, and it is not the Deathstick, but a wand made with piecesof Noah's Ark and the One True Cross? Crazy stuff.

Perhaps I'll put them up someday. iN the mean time, this is probably going to be my last offering. I want to thank my editor, Teufel1987, for sticking with me through all these years. I'm sure he clutches his head in agony every time a new chapter comes through. I have always been one of those writers more concerned with substance than style—a fact which causes most editors to develop large headaches.

That being the case, I decided to go out with a bang. I came across the Stephen King story this one is based on again earlier this year, and I instantly saw the possibilities. I don't believe anything like this has ever been done up here yet.

And now, gentle reader, I have some things to tell you, and I think you'll be able to hear me better around the corner … In the dark.

# # #

1

He looked like the total all-English boy as he pedalled his shiny new-looking Italian-made bicycle down the tree-lined village street, and that's just what he was. His name was Alvin Sedirius Potter. He was the youngest son of Harry James Potter, who was in turn the youngest recipient of a whole fruit salad of medals awarded by the Prime Minister and the Sovereign, as well as the Order of Merlin from their own side of the divide. Alvin was very proud of his father.

Now here he was, thirteen years old, a healthy five-feet-eight-inches tall (taller than his father was at that age, Alvin sometimes thought with a trace of smugness), black hair, green eyes, lightly tanned skin unmarred by so much as a shadow of adolescent acne. He was the spitting image of his father, only healthier than his father ever had looked.

The man he was coming to visit lived well outside any magical areas—although Alvin couldn't really blame him for that. The nearest Floo was in Godric's Hollow, the next town over. It was in his house, as a matter of fact. Al often bicycled around the countryside, unlike his siblings. They had little patience for such slow means of transport, and generally viewed most of the Muggle world as a somewhat scary place. Al, however, with the support of his father, often poked around the Muggle world. Which is what had led him to the man he was now visiting.

Now, as he pedalled through alternating bands of sun and shadow down the quiet streets of Greaves, grinning his summer vacation grin, Alvin felt a growing sense of excitement. He was flushed with the knowledge he carried around inside him, a secret nobody but he and the man he was coming to visit knew.

He drew his bicycle to a stop in front of 963 Edgehill Road, leaning it against the mailbox. The house here was a neat bungalow surrounded by an equally neat privet hedge. The lawn was well-trimmed and there was a small herb garden and flower bed underneath one of the curtained windows, which were all dark at nine in the morning.

Alvin smiled widely and set off up the walk. _The Guardian_ was lying in a plastic bag at the foot of the front steps, and Alvin picked this up and tucked it under his arm as he climbed to the stoop.

Here there was a heavy windowless wooden door behind a latched screen door. There was a door bell on the right, and beneath it were two signs, screwed into the wood and covered with plastic so they would not water spot or fade.

The top sign read _ARCHIBALD CRAVEN._

The bottom sign read _NO SOLICITORS, NO PEDDLERS, NO SALESMEN._

Al smiled at these as he pressed the door bell, and cocked his head to listen for footsteps from within.

There was the muted burr of the bell from inside the house. Al glanced at his watch and counted thirty seconds of silence. Then he leaned on the bell, still keeping his eye on the watch.

By his count, seventy seconds passed before he heard the soft _wish-wish_ of slippers on the floor.

"I'm coming!" the man who was pretending to be Archibald Craven said querulously. "Let it go. I'm coming!"

Still smiling, Al released the door bell and stood back a little.

There was the soft rattle of a chain latch and the snick of a bolt being drawn back. The heavy wooden door creaked open and there was the guy. He did not unlatch the screen door.

An old man hunched inside a bathrobe stood in the doorway, a smouldering cigarette clamped in his fingers. He looked like a cross between Albert Einstein and Lurch, from the old Adams Family movies Al had seen at his friend George Leavenson's house. His hair was short and white and beginning to yellow in an unpleasant way that was more nicotine than ivory. There were only a few teeth left in his mouth, causing his face to have a vacuous, caved-in look. His eyes were dim and covered by thin cataracts, shot through with bursts of red. His nose was long and hooked and covered with burst veins. Al also noticed with some distaste that the guy hadn't bothered shaving for a few days.

For a second, Al felt a sense of deep disappointment. The guy did sort of look like Albert Einstein, but what he looked like more than anything else was one of the vagrants you sometimes saw skulking in Knockturn Alley or lurking down in the train yards, or in the outlying fields that surrounded the three towns of Raven's Glen, Greaves and Godric's Hollow, looking for hay bales to curl up in, or something to steal.

Of course, Al reminded himself, the guy had just gotten up. Al had seen Craven many times before today (although he had been at great pains to be sure that Craven never saw him.) On those occasions, Craven had looked very natty, every inch the officer in retirement, you might say, even if he was seventy years old if the articles Al had read in the library had his birth date right. Whenever Al had followed him to the Asda, where Craven did his shopping, or to the Greaves public library where Craven got his books, or to the Raven's Glen theatre where Craven went to see a movie every Saturday night, he was always dressed in one of three suits, meticulously ironed and starched. When the weather was threatening he carried an umbrella under his arm, and he wore a very sharp looking top hat over his thinning white hair. And on these occasions, he had always been neatly shaved.

"A boy," he said now. His voice was thick and sleepy. Al saw with fresh disappointment that his robe was faded and tacky. One rounded collar point stuck up at an awkward angle to poke at his wattled neck. There was a splotch of what might've been chili, or tomato sauce on one lapel. But Al saw something else, something he had been looking for: Recognition. It was gone almost as fast as he saw it though, and he couldn't be sure.

"A boy," the man pretending to be Archibald Craven repeated. "I don't need anything, boy. Read the signs. You can read, can't you? Of course you can. All young boys can read. Do not be a pest, boy. Good day."

It might've ended right there, Al thought later on the nights when sleep was hard to find. There was the deep disappointment in this meeting, of seeing the man close up, with his street face hung up in the closet. Up close, the man was no more unusual than any other old man living in quiet obscurity. Up close, it was hard to believe that this old man had been anything other than what he appeared to be.

Yes, the whole affair might've stopped there, the sound of the closing latch and the snick of the bolt driving home putting paid to everything that followed as neat as you please.

But Al was a bright boy, and he had been taught that persistence was a virtue.

"Don't forget your paper, Mr Snape," Al said, holding up the plastic-wrapped _Guardian_ politely.

The door stopped dead in its arc, still inches from the jam. A tight, watchful expression flitted across Severus Snape's face and was gone at once. Al felt another sharp jab of disappointment. It was good how Snape had made that expression disappear, but Al hadn't expected Snape to be good; he had expected Snape to be great.

_Boy,_ Al thought with real disgust. _Boy oh boy._

The door came open again. A hand, bunched with arthritis but still looking somewhat elegant, came wriggling through the gap to unlatch the screen door. Al saw, with renewed disgust, that the fingernails were long and yellow and horny. It was a hand that had gone from being buried in potions ingredients day after day to spending all its time holding one cigarette after another. Al thought smoking was a filthy dangerous habit, one he himself would never take up. It was a wonder Snape had lived as long as he had.

The spider-like hand clamped on to the edge of the paper Al was holding out and tugged. "Give me my paper, boy."

"Sure thing, Mr Snape," Al said.

The spider hand retreated back inside, leaving the screen door to clack shut. "My name is Craven, boy. Not this Snape. Apparently you cannot read. What a pity. Good day."

The wooden door started to close again. Al spoke rapidly into the narrowing gap. "Lockwood, June 1997 to October 1997. Brecon Resettlement and Re-education, November 1997 to February 1998. Aldershot—"

The door stopped again. The old man's face hung in the gap like a wrinkled half-deflated balloon. Al smiled. "You left Aldershot just ahead of the Order of the Phoenix. You went to Rome. Some people say you got rich there, investing some of the money you took out of Britain. Whatever, you went to the United States—"

"Boy, you are insane." One of the once-elegant but now arthritic fingers twirled around a misshapen ear. But the mouth was quivering infirmly.

"From 2000 to 2005 I don't know," Al said, smiling wider still. "No one does, or if they do, they're not telling. Then you were spotted in London, working at a Bayswater hotel as a concierge. Then you popped up again in 2010. An MBO agent spotted you in Wiltshire. They almost got you." He pronounced the last two words as one: _gotcha._ His hands clenched together in one large, wriggling fist. Snape's eyes dropped to those well-made hands, hands that looked as though they might be used to build models and possibly play an instrument. As a matter of fact, Al and his father had built a model of the _Titanic_ the previous year. It had taken them four months and his father kept it in his Ministry office. And just this spring, Al had taken up the guitar.

"I don't know what you are talking about, boy." Snape's voice had a mushy rounded quality, nothing at all like the sharp, snide voice Al had imagined he might have. But in his time, he must have been a real sharp cookie. In an article Al had read, Snape had been called the Potion's-Fiend of Lockwood. "Get out of here, before I call the constable."

"Gosh, I guess you better call them, Mr Snape." He continued to smile, showing teeth which had been fluoridated since the beginning of his life and bathed in Crest Toothpaste for almost as long—his sort-of-Aunt Hermione's influence. "After 2010, nobody saw you again until two months ago. That was me, on the bus."

"You're totally insane."

"So if you want to call the constable, you go right ahead. I'll wait right here. But if you don't want to call them right off, why don't I come in. We'll talk." Al smiled and smiled.

There was a long moment of silence while the old man looked at the smiling boy. Birds chirped in the trees. On the next block, a power mower hummed somnolently in the warm morning air. On busier streets farther away, distance making them sound as unimportant as they undoubtedly were, cars honked their own rhythm of life and commerce.

As the moment spun out, Al felt the onset of doubt. He couldn't be wrong about Snape, could he? He had checked and double checked and he was sure he was correct, but this was no school assignment; this was real life, with much higher stakes involved. So he felt a sense of relief (mild relief, he told himself later) when Snape said: "You may come in for a moment, but only because I do not wish to make trouble for you, you understand?"

"Sure, Mr Snape," Al said. He opened the screen door and stepped into the hall. Snape closed the wooden door, shutting out the morning.

The house smelled stale and old. It was the smell of cheap liquor, fried foods, dirty clothes and floors which lay un-vacuumed for weeks at a time. It was the smell of the house of a man who had given up. The hallway was dark, and Snape was standing too close, his head bunched into the collar of his tacky bathrobe like a vulture waiting for its prey to give up the ghost. In spite of Snape's age, the stubble and loosely hanging flesh, Al could suddenly see the man in the black Death Eater uniform more clearly than ever before. He felt a sharp lancet of fear slide into his belly. Mild fear, he told himself later.

"I should tell you that if anything were to happen to me—" Al began, and then Snape was brushing passed him into the lounge, his slippers whispering. He flapped a contemptuous hand at Al, and Al felt a rush of hot blood mount into his face.

Al followed, his smile wavering for the first time. He had not quite pictured it happening like this. But things would work out eventually. Sure they would. They usually did. He began to smile again as he stepped into Snape's lounge.

Here was another disappointment. There was of course no portrait of the Dark Lord with his snake-like nose and red eyes that followed you everywhere. No decorative potions cauldron hanging on the wall, no ceremonial wand on the mantel (there was, in fact, no mantel.) Of course, the guy would have to be crazy to have left any of that stuff out. But it was hard to put all your expectations out of your head. It was sort of like the old joke about the fat disk jockey with the skinny voice, or the way you built up television actors in your head into idealized portraits. Then when you actually got the opportunity to see them, they turned out to be not at all like you pictured—either taller or shorter or somehow less there than their on-screen personas.

It looked like the lounge of any other old man whiling away his final years on a slightly frayed pension. The fake fireplace was faced with fake bricks. An old-fashioned clock hung over it, ticking calmly into the stillness. A very old television stood on a stand in the corner. The rug on the floor was balding and frayed and dusty. There was a magazine rack by the sofa, holding copies of _National Trust Magazine,_ _Nature's Home,_ and _TV Choice._

Instead of a portrait of Voldemort or a decorative potions cauldron on the wall, there was an indifferent landscape with an indecipherable signature in the lower right hand corner. And a somewhat smudged photograph of a scrawny woman wearing a hat.

"My wife," Snape said sentimentally. "She died in 2005 of ovarian cancer. At that time I was working at the Ford assembly line in Essex. I was heartbroken."

Al continued smiling. He crossed the frayed carpet as though to get a better look at the woman in the picture. Instead of looking at the picture, he fingered the shade on a small table lamp.

"Stop that!" Snape barked harshly.

Al jumped backward a little, and then smiled again. "That was good," he said sincerely. "Really commanding. It was Dolores Umbridge who had the lampshades of human skin, wasn't it? And she came up with the trick with the spiked collars."

"I don't know what you are talking about," Snape said for the second time. There was a package of Dunhills on the TV. Snape reached for them and offered one to Al. "Cigarette?" he asked, and grinned. His grin was hideous.

"No. They give you lung cancer. My dad picked up the habit, but he quit."

"Did he?" Snape scratched a match alight indifferently on the case of the TV. Puffing, he said: "Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn't call the constable and tell them of the monstrous accusations you've just made? Speak quickly, boy. The phone is just down the hall. Your father would spank you, I think. You would take your dinner sitting on a cushion for a week or so, eh?"

"My parents don't believe in spanking. They say corporal punishment causes more problems than it cures." Al's eyes suddenly gleamed. "Did you spank any of them? The women? Did you take off their clothes and—"

With a muttered oath, Snape strode toward the phone.

Al said coldly: "You better not do that."

Snape turned and faced the boy. In measured tones, spoiled only slightly by the loose way his lips flapped over his missing teeth, he said: "I tell you this once and only once, boy. My name is Archibald Craven. It has never been anything else, not even Snape, or Father Christmas. I had nothing whatever to do with Death Eaters, although I followed their exploits on the news. I was born in Yorkshire and attended school at Milford Preparatory School. I married in 1985 and worked at the Ford plant in Essex until 2012, when I retired due to a back injury. I bought this little house here with my severance pay, where I have remained ever since. No Rome. No United States. No Bayswater hotel. And now, unless you leave, I am calling the constable."

Snape watched Al do nothing. Then he went to the phone and picked it up. Al continued to stand by the table with the small lamp on it. He watched Snape dial, his heart speeding up in his chest.

After the fourth number, Snape stopped. His shoulders sagged, and he put the phone down.

"A boy," he breathed, turning back to Al. "A boy."

Al smiled modestly.

"How did you find out?"

"One piece of good luck and a lot of hard work," Al said, and then he told Snape his story.

# # #

The second wizarding war had been a catastrophic mess from the start. In June of 1995, Harry Potter had been kidnapped at the end of the final task of the Triwizard Tournament, and his blood used to resurrect Tom Riddle, aka Voldemort. Potter escaped, taking Peter Pettigrew with him. Pettigrew stood trial at which time the fact of Voldemort's resurrection came out. With Aurors hunting him almost from the outset, Voldemort had had to take action forthwith, rather than wait and gather allies as he had originally planned.

Things hadn't ended there, however. Severus Snape, who had been teaching potions at Hogwarts School since 1982, felt his Dark Mark burn and immediately swung into action. It came out later that he had, ever since he started working at Hogwarts, been lacing Albus Dumbledore's favourite candy with a sleeper poison; that is, a poison that would only become viable when an activating ingredient was introduced into the target. Dumbledore died the day after the final task, frothing at the mouth and dissolving from the inside out, in full view of a horrified Wizengamot Council. This was a devastating blow to the newly-reformed Order of the Phoenix. They began to doubt their ability to triumph, with Dumbledore gone.

Voldemort did not give them any breathing room, either. Within a week of his resurrection, sleeper agents in the Ministry for Magic had facilitated its complete takeover, and by July first, magical Britain was under Voldemort's rule.

Then Voldemort struck out into the Muggle world. Lucius Malfoy, Amycus Carrow and Fenrir Greyback broke into Ten Downing Street and assassinated John Major, the prime minister. They did not bother erasing or in any way disarming the security cameras. Thus the magical world became known to the Muggle.

With the Ministry taken over, Voldemort began rounding up Muggle-borns and their families, under the auspices of the so-called Muggle-born Registration Commission. A number of camps were established to house them, and the experiments and exterminations began. By the end of the war, almost sixty thousand squibs, Muggle-borns and their families from all over Europe were killed. When one considers that the magical population of the entire world was, at that time, about only eight hundred thousand, this was a devastating blow. Along with the deaths in the camps, another five thousand were killed in actual fighting.

At first the British military wanted to go in and wipe out every magical in the British Isles. It took a lot of fast talking by the tattered remains of the former magical government to get them to change their mind. And even then, they, the magicals, were given a deadline. If they hadn't taken care of the problem, the military would go in with guns blazing and exterminate every magical person alive on British soil.

Things almost escalated into World War Three before Harry Potter finally killed Voldemort, in 1998. The village of Hogsmeade was flattened by an air bombing. Diagon Alley was wiped from the map also. There were a lot of squibs in the military- people who had left the magical world due to blatant discrimination and hate. They were more than happy to help bypass magical wards and plant bombs in key locations.

With the killing of Voldemort, things began to change. An organisation of Muggle-borns was started—the Muggle-born Organisation against Oppression (MBO), whose main mission was to ensure that things never got so bad again. They oversaw every law that went into effect to make sure the pure-bloods never got so much control of things. Many of the old families, of course, were unhappy about this turn of events, and several small civil wars broke out. The queen once again began to have a hand in magical affairs, and the ICW merged with the United Nations to oversee world magical politics.

Interestingly enough, once the remnants of the Death Eaters were rounded up, there did not immediately begin a series of witch hunts, as many feared. With the popularity of video games, movies, fantasy literature, Wicca, new-age religions and mysticism, there was almost universal acceptance of wizards. After all the upheavals had settled down, there began to be a rising industry of do-it-yourself wizardry, tests you could buy to see if you or anyone in your family was magical, Facebook pages devoted to magical studies, and so on. All of it was pure nonsense, and many of the real wizards in the ministry found this turn of events baffling.

Meanwhile, almost all the Death Eaters and their sympathisers were executed by sending them through the veil at the Ministry. The shock and outrage at what had been discovered in the camps was almost unparalleled, and there was no mercy granted to those who staffed them. Dolores Umbridge was torn apart by a mob prior to her sentencing, and Lucius Malfoy committed suicide before they caught up to him. The only Death Eater to escape had been Severus Snape.

Harry Potter was awarded a great many medals, as were his two friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Sirius Black (who had been killed in a battle) was posthumously awarded an Order of Merlin, also. Harry married Ginny Weasley and Ron married Luna Lovegood, who had turned out to be one of the fiercest fighters on their side.

Hogwarts was turned into a day school overseen by the Muggle education system in joint cooperation with the Ministry for Magic. Educational standards at the school were upgraded on both sides of the divide, and students were expected to sit for both magical and Muggle exams.

Harry Potter had three children, James Sirius, Alvin Sedirius, and Lily Luna. Ron Weasley had two, Hugo and Rose. Draco Malfoy, who surprisingly enough, had turned against his father, had two children, Scorpius and Belladonna.

Al had always been interested in his father's history, but whenever he had asked about it his father had given him vague answers, telling him that it was best forgotten. And the stuff in his history book was bland, almost antiseptic. None of the older people Al had tentatively approached would talk to him either. Hear no evil, see no evil.

So things might've remained had it not been for one of Al's Muggle friends, Steve Jacobs. If he couldn't get any information from the magical world, the Muggle one was chalk full of stuff. Finding a whole subsection of society that had remained hidden for hundreds of years was big news. And in Steve's garage one day, when they were out looking for comics to read, Al noticed a pile of boxes stuffed under the shelving units on one side.

"What're those?" Al asked, pointing at the bulging boxes.

"Aw, those are boring. Just old newspapers and magazines. 'Bout the war 'n stuff," Steve said, shooting a disinterested glance at the mildewy pile.

"Mind if I have a look?"

"Sure. I'll find the comics."

Al remembered, at the end of second year, Professor Karen Smith (whom all the kids called Professor Bunny because of her big ears) telling them about what she called finding YOUR GREAT INTEREST.

"It comes all at once," Professor Bunny had said, striding across the classroom, talking with her hands and her ears standing out from the side of her head. "Like a key turning in a lock or falling in love for the first time. That's why picking the right electives is so important, children- you might find YOUR GREAT INTEREST." And then she went on to tell them about her own GREAT INTEREST, which was not teaching children, but collecting sixteenth century gravestone rubbings.

At the time, Al had thought old Professor Bunny was full of hippogriff spit, but that day in Stevie's garage, he wondered if maybe she hadn't been right after all.

It had been raining at the time, the wind blowing in great whooping gasps against the loosely fitted windows of the garage. Al remembered everything about that day. The smell of the air, redolent of motor oil and sawdust from the floor, and the cleaner scent of the rainy day being forced through the cracks in the windows. Stevie's cowlick sticking up at the back, his shirt, with a splotch of grape jelly on the front from their sandwiches earlier. He remembered everything.

And by the time Stevie had found the comics, Al had been lost—totally lost.

_It's like a key turning in a lock. Or falling in love for the first time._

It had been like that. Al had known a little bit about the war, but only a little bit. He knew Voldemort wanted to rule everything and that he had killed a lot of people, and others like his father had fought against him. He even knew a little bit about the camps that had been set up, and that because of the war magicals and Muggles now lived in somewhat uneasy peace.

The difference between what he knew and what had been in the magazines and newspapers was like the difference between intellectually knowing about magic and actually learning how to use it.

Here was Dolores Umbridge. Here were magically fired crematoriums with their doors standing ajar on soot-crusted hinges. Here were wizards in Death Eater uniforms and prisoners in paper uniforms. The smell of the magazines was old and pulpy. He turned the pages, no longer in Stevie Jacobs's garage but caught somewhere in time, trying to wrestle with the idea that someone had actually done those things, that someone had let them do those things, and his head ached with a mixture of revulsion and excitement, and his eyes felt hot and strained, and then beneath a picture of tangled bodies at a place called Lockwood, a figure jumped out at him:

_60,000_

And he thought: That can't be right, somebody goofed there, somebody maybe added a zero or two, that's almost the entire population of magicals in the British Isles!

But in another magazine (this one had a picture on the cover of a guy in a Death Eater uniform approaching a woman chained to a wall with a branding iron in his hand and a grin on his face), he saw that number again:

_60,000._

His headache worsened and his mouth went dry. As though from a hundred miles away, he heard Stevie say he had to go in for supper. Al asked if he could stay and read some more. Stevie, looking puzzled, said sure. And Al stayed there, hunched over the boxes of old newspapers and magazines and read, until his mother called and asked if he was ever coming home.

_Like a key turning in a lock._

All the magazines said it was bad, what had happened. But the stories were continued at the back, and they were surrounded by ads selling Death Eater uniforms and banners, fake wands and t-shirts emblazoned with the Death Eater insignia, and Voldemort action figures. They said it was bad, but it seemed an awful lot of people must not mind.

_Like falling in love._

Oh yes, he remembered that day very well. He remembered everything—a yellowing calendar on the back wall of the garage, the way the shadows fell on the dirt floor, the sound of life going on inside the house. He remembered thinking: _I want to know about everything that happened in those places. Everything. And I want to know which is more true—the words, or the ads they put beside the words._

He remembered Professor Bunny as he pushed the boxes back under the shelving and thought: _She was right. I've found my GREAT INTEREST._

Snape looked at Al for a long time, unable to analyse the dreamy, slightly nostalgic expression on the boy's face. Then he crossed the room and sank heavily into the old wooden rocker by the window.

"Yeah, it was the magazines that got me interested, but I figured a lot of what was in there might've been, you know, exaggerated. So I went to the library and found even more stuff. Some of it was even neater. My parents gave me an adult library card for my birthday last year, so I didn't have any problem finding books. There must've been a hundred books about the Death Eater camps right there in the Godric's Hollow library. Guess a lot of people like reading about that stuff. There weren't as many pictures as in the mags, but it was still pretty neat. Spiked collars to turn magic against you. Poisons that came out of the showers. You guys really went overboard, you know it?" Al shook his head. "You really did."

"I did a research paper last year, too. And guess what I got on it?" An O plus. Of course, I had to write it a certain way. You got to be careful."

"Do you?" Snape asked. He took another cigarette with a trembling hand.

"Oh yeah. All those books, they were written like the guys who wrote them got sick over what they were writing about." Al was frowning, wrestling with the thought. The fact that tone, as that word is applied to writing, wasn't a part of his vocabulary, made the task more difficult. "They all wrote like we had to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. I made my paper like that and I guess the history teacher gave me the O plus 'cause I didn't get sick just reading the source material." Al smiled his wide smile again.

Snape dragged heavily on his cigarette and coughed an old man's dank, hollow cough. "I hardly believe this conversation is taking place." He leaned forward and peered intently at Al. "Boy, do you know the meaning of the word 'existentialism'?"

Al ignored the question. "Did you ever meet Dolores Umbridge?"

"Dolores Umbridge?" Almost inaudibly, Snape said: "Yes, I met her."

Al looked up eagerly. "Was she beautiful? I mean…" his hands described an hour glass shape in the air.

Snape drew some more on his cigarette. "Surely you have seen her photograph? An aficionado such as yourself?"

"What's an af… af…?"

"An aficionado," Snape answered, "is one who has … who has found their GREAT INTEREST, as you put it."

"Oh." Al smiled again. "Sure I've seen her pic. But you know how they are in those books." He spoke as though Snape had them all. "Blurry, black and white, mostly just snapshots. None of those guys knew they were taking pictures for, you know, history. Was she really stacked?"

"She was fat, dumpy and looked like a toad," Snape said with some distaste. He butted out his cigarette in an ashtray in the shape of a fish.

"Oh, darn," Al said disappointedly.

"Just my luck," Snape mused, lighting a fresh cigarette. "You saw my picture in a magazine and recognised me on the bus. Gah." He slammed his hand on the arm of his chair with disgust, but little force.

"No sir, Mr Snape. There was a lot more to it than that," Al said earnestly.

"Oh? Really?" Snape's bushy eyebrows rose in polite disbelief.

"Oh yeah. The pictures of you in my scrapbook are all at least thirty years old. I mean, it is 2030."

"You keep a … a scrapbook?"

"Yes, sir. It's a great one, got over a hundred pictures. I'll show it to you sometime. You'll love it."

Snape's face pulled into a revolted grimace, but he said nothing.

"First couple times I saw you, I wasn't sure. Then one day you got on the bus when it was raining, and you had this big black slicker on—"

"That," Snape breathed.

"Sure. It wasn't exactly a Death Eater robe, but it billowed behind you in the same shape your robes used to do. So I saw that, and I thought to myself, 'it's for sure. That's Severus Snape'. So I started shadowing you."

"You did what?"

"I shadowed you. Followed you. I want to be a detective or a hit wizard when I grow up. I was super careful, didn't want you to get wise. Want to see some pictures?"

Al took a folded envelope out of his back pocket. Sweat had folded the flap down, and he peeled it back carefully. His eyes were shining like a boy thinking about Christmas, or his birthday, or the fireworks he will shoot off on Guy Fawkes Day.

"You took pictures of me?"

"Oh yeah. I got a cell phone. No magical cameras can be used for surveillance. All that magic and they still make a racket." Al shook his head in disappointment." "Anyway, I took pics on my phone and printed them out at home. Not like the old days when you had to develop them in a darkroom."

Al handed Snape several prints, their paper indicating they had been printed rather than developed. Snape went through them, silently grim. Here he was sitting on the bus, holding a copy of _The Casual Vacancy_ in his hands. Here he was, standing in the produce aisle of the local Asda, frowning over some corncobs. Here he was, standing in line at the theatre, conspicuous by his height and bearing among the blank faced teenagers and housewives. And finally, here he was getting the mail out of his own mailbox.

"I was worried you might see me on that one," Al said. "I was right across the street. Crikey, I wish I could afford a camera with a telephoto lens. One of these days." Al looked wistful.

"You no doubt had a story ready."

"I was going to ask if you'd seen my dog. Anyway, after I finished those, I compared them to these."

He handed Snape three photos, run off at the library's Xerox machine. Snape recognised all of them. The first one showed him in his office at the Brecon Resettlement Camp. It had been cropped so the only things showing were Snape himself and the Death Eater flag in its stand by his desk. The second one showed a picture of him, just after he had joined the Hogwarts staff. And the last one showed him shaking hands with Lucius Malfoy; it had been taken after the assassination of John Major, a security camera still.

"I was pretty sure then, but I couldn't take any chances. I had to be one hundred percent certain it was you. So I got this."

He handed Snape the last paper in his envelope. It had been folded many times; dirt was ground into the creases. The corners were chewed and frayed looking—the way papers get when they spend a lot of time in the pockets of young boys with lots of places to go and things to do. It was a copy of the MBO want sheet on Severus Snape. Holding it in his hand, Snape reflected on corpses that were unquiet and refused to stay buried.

"I took your fingerprints. And then I compared them to the ones on the sheet," Al said, smiling. "With computers, it's a snap these days."

Snape gaped at him. "You did not!"

"Sure I did. I got a fingerprint set for Christmas. A real one, not just a toy. It even came with an ALS."

"A what?"

"Alternative light source," Al said. "The book that came with the kit explained all about whorls and lands and points of similarity. They're called compares, and you need ten good compares to stand up in court.

"So anyway, one day while you were out shopping I came here and dusted your door knob and mailbox and got all the prints I could. Pretty smart, huh?"

Snape said nothing. He was clutching the arms of his chair tightly and his mouth was quivering. It looked as though he might burst into tears. That, of course, was ridiculous, though. The Potions-Fiend of Lockwood, in tears? You might as well expect Gringotts to hand out free gold or the Canons to finally win the league.

"I scanned them into the computer and got two sets. The first one didn't match anything on the sheet, so I figured it was the postman. And the last set was a perfect match, and it was you. And that's how I did it."

"You are a little bastard," Snape said, and there was a hard gleam in his eye all of a sudden. Al felt a tingling thrill, as he had in the hallway. Then Snape slumped back again.

"Whom have you told, boy?"

"No one at all."

"Not even this friend? This Kevin Jacobson?"

"Stevie. Stevie Jacobs. Nah, he's a bit of a loudmouth. There's nobody I trust that much."

"What do you want, then? Money? There is none, I'm afraid. In America there was, although it wasn't as romantic as you no doubt imagine. No drug dealing or human trafficking. There is—there was—a sort of good old boy network in the United States and Canada and Mexico. Sympathisers from the war. The Dark Lord's influence stretched globally, you know. I joined their circle and did rather well. They played the Muggle stock market and I picked up some and did rather well in commodities and minerals. But then I had to leave in a hurry. The MBO men almost got me; twice I heard the Muggle bastards in the next room.

"They found the Lestranges, you know," he almost whispered, his hand going to his neck. Now his eyes were as round as those of a child listening to the darkest passages of a scary tale— "Bluebeard," perhaps. "They were old and of no danger to anyone. Still, they hanged them."

Al nodded. It was big news when they were found, hiding in Istanbul.

"Finally I couldn't run any more. I went to the Mafia. Bought a set of false papers. They had connections here in the right departments. My identification is real enough. For all intents and purposes, I am Archibald Craven. Would you care for a drink, boy?"

"Sure. Got any Cola?"

"No Cola."

"Milk?"

"Milk." Snape got up and headed into the kitchen. A fluorescent bar buzzed into life. "I live now on new stock dividends," his voice came floating back, echoing off the walls. "Stocks I picked up once I returned here. A little British Telecom, a little IBM, some British Petroleum."

Al heard a cupboard door open and close, the sound of glasses clunking onto a counter. "Lucky the Mafia did not know about those stocks," Snape continues. "Else they would've sent me here to live off the dole."

Al heard a refrigerator door open and close.

"I dared not access money from Gringotts. I still have a vault in there, you know. But I found out that even the goblins have agents working for the MBO."

Al heard liquid poured into a glass, and then the refrigerator open and close again. Snape shuffled back into the room, his slippers whispering. He was carrying two chipped plastic glasses that looked as though they had come from a consignment shop. He thrust one at Al.

"I lived reasonably well on the portfolio for the first five years I was here. Then I sold some of the British Telecom stocks to buy this house, some of the British Petroleum to buy a small cottage in Caithness. Then, inflation, recession. I sold the cottage and one by one I sold the stocks. I wish to God I had bought more…" he made a toothless whistling sound.

Al was bored. He had not come here to listen to Snape whine about his money or mutter about his lost stocks. The thought of blackmailing the man never crossed his mind. Money? What would he do with it? He had his allowance and, should his monetary needs in any given week exceed that, there was always someone who needed his lawn mowed, or leaves raked, or driveway shovelled.

Al lifted his milk glass to his lips … and hesitated. His smile shown out, an admiring smile this time. "You have some of it," he said slyly, holding out the glass to Snape.

Snape looked uncomprehending. Then he rolled his bloodshot eyes and took the glass from Al. "Christ." He swallowed twice from it. No gasping for breath. No smoke coming out of his eyes or ears. No clawing at the throat. "It is milk, boy. Milk. From the Bates Dairy."

Al watched him for a moment, took the glass back and had a small sip. Tasted like milk, sure did, but he still somehow wasn't reassured and seemed to have lost his thirst. The spectre of Dumbledore danced behind his eyes. He put the glass down.

Snape shrugged and took a gulp from his own glass. He smacked his lips with relish.

"Firewhisky?"

"Regular whisky. Highland Black. Very nice. And cheap."

Al said nothing. He fiddled his fingers along the seams of his jeans.

"So," Snape said, "if you have come with extortion in mind, you should be aware that—"

But Al was laughing—hearty, boyish laughter. He shook his head, tried to speak, could not, and kept laughing.

"No," Snape said, and he now looked more frightened than at any time since he and Al had begun speaking. He had another large gulp from his drink, grimaced, and shuddered. "I see that is not it … at least, not the extortion of money. But, though you laugh, I smell extortion somewhere. What is it? Why do you come here and disturb an old man? Perhaps, as you say, I was once a Death Eater. But I have not used magic in better than twenty years, nor have I made a potion in almost as long; I do not even own a wand anymore. I am very nearly a Muggle these days—magic withers up and dies if you don't use it, you know. I am just another old man. So why do you come here and disturb me now?"

Al, having sobered finally, looked at Snape with an open, appealing frankness. "Why, I want to hear about it. That's all I want. Really."

"Hear about it?" Snape echoed. He looked utterly baffled.

Al leaned forward, tanned elbows on blue jeans clad knees. "Yeah. The ovens. The executions. The way they had to dig their own graves by hand. The potions that came out of the showers. The…" His tongue came out, wetting his lips. "The examinations. The experiments. All of it."

Snape was staring at Al with a certain amazed detachment, the way one might stare at something disgusting which has crawled out of a drain. "You are a monster," he said softly.

Al sniffed. "According to the books I read, you're the monster, Mr Snape. Two thousand a day at Brecon before you came, twenty-five hundred after you got there and before the Order caught up and made you stop. You sent them to the ovens, not me. You gave them all those potions, not me. And you call me a monster."

"All of that is a filthy Muggle lie," Snape said, stung. He slammed his glass down on the table beside him, sloshing cheap whisky onto his hands. "The problem was not of my making, nor was the solution. I was given orders and directives, which I followed."

Al's smile widened into almost a smirk.

"Oh, I know how that sounds. Just what the Nazis said after World War II," Snape muttered. "I had a little more sympathy for them, given my own position. One does not argue with madmen, especially when the maddest of them all had the luck of Satan. He escaped a brilliant assassination attempt by inches … and then he had the culprits rounded up and executed in the most gruesome fashion in front of all of us. One either runs with the wind or one stands against it and gets knocked down, boy. If I had not followed orders, I would be dead."

Al ignored most of this. He wasn't interested in Snape's politics any more than he was interested in Snape's money. His idea was that people made up politics so they could do things. Like when he wanted to feel around under Rose Weasley's sweater a few weeks ago. She hadn't wanted to let him, although he could tell from the tone of her voice and the blush on her cheeks that she was sort of excited by the idea. So he told her he wanted to be a healer when he grew up, and then she let him. That was politics. Politics was just the shiny on-top reasons people made up to rationalize when they got caught. He wanted to hear about Death Eater experimenters trying to mate Muggles with unicorns, and about seeing how long magic could keep you alive while being locked in a magically isolated room with no food or water, and seeing the effect unicorn blood had on Muggles, and Death Eaters raping all the women they wanted. The rest was just so much tired hippogriff spit to cover up all the messy stuff when someone caught them and put a stop to it.

"If I had not followed orders, I would've been dead," Snape repeated. His upper body was rocking back and forth in the chair. A cloud of cheap whisky smell hung around him. "For that time and place, it was the right thing. I would do it again. But…"

His cloudy eyes dropped to his glass. It was empty.

"But I do not wish to speak of it, or even think of it. For many years I had dreams …" He took a cigarette slowly from the box and lit it, dragging deep. "Blackness and sounds in the blackness. Screams … and footsteps coming closer, made by something or someone I could not see. The sound of liquid that might've been blood or rain running down a hard surface. And then eyes, eyes shining out of the blackness would open and gleam, like small animals in the rain forest. I spent a lot of time in southern Mexico, you know. That is why I so often see the jungle in these dreams. When I woke from these dreams, I would be drenched with sweat and my heart thundering in my chest, my fist stuffed into my mouth to stifle the screams. And I would think: The work must go on so that there is no evidence of what we did here, so that the world would not have to believe it. The work must go on so that we could survive."

Al listened to this closely and with great interest. This was pretty good, but he was sure there would be a lot better in the days to come.

Snape dragged on his cigarette again, the smoke raftering on the still air of the room. "Later after the dreams went away, I would sometimes see people I thought I recognized from Lockwood or Brecon. Never Death Eaters or guards, always inmates. One time I was in Hoboken, New Jersey. If there is a nastier town than Hoboken, New Jersey on the east coast of the United States, boy, I don't know it. There was a traffic jam on the Garden State Parkway. I was driving a very old Plymouth Fury, and next to me was an equally old Cadillac. There was an old man in there, and he was looking at me. He was perhaps fifty, and he looked ill. The minutes passed, and Every time I looked over, he was watching me. His eyes were sunken in their sockets, and he was watching me. I became convinced that he had been at Brecon, and that he had recognised me. Many of the old prisoners did after all leave Britain. Every time I saw him watching me, I became more convinced."

Snape rubbed a hand over his face, producing a thin rasping sound.

"At last the traffic moved, and I pulled away from the Cadillac. If the jam had lasted another five minutes, I would've beaten the old man, whether or not he was an inmate. I would have beaten him for looking at me that way.

"Shortly after that, I left the United States. I came here, under a new identity. I had plastic surgery, did you know that?"

"Yeah. Your nose is a little smaller and your face is shaped differently than the old staff photos."

"Correct. I came here, and I eat out once a week at one of those fast food restaurants which are so clean and well-lighted by fluorescent bars. I go to movies. Here at my house I do crossword and jigsaw puzzles and I read novels—most of them bad ones—and I watch the telly. At night I drink until I am sleepy. And when I see someone looking at me in the supermarket or the library or the tobacconist's, I think that I must remind them of their departed grandfather, or a favoured teacher." He shook his head at Al. "What ever happened at Brecon or Lockwood or Aldershot, it happened to another man. Not me."

"Great," Al said. "I want to hear all about it."

Snape's reddened eyes squeezed closed, and then opened slowly. "You don't understand. I do not wish to speak of it."

"You will, though. If you don't, I'll turn you in. My father, 'specially, would love to know you're here."

"I knew I would find the extortion somewhere," Snape muttered. He stared at Al, Grey-faced.

"Today I want to hear about the ovens. How you tried to cook the magic out of them." His smile beamed out, radiant, expectant.

Snape did as he was told. He talked to Al about the ovens until Al had to go home for lunch. Snape drank a great deal as he talked. He did not smile. Al smiled. Al smiled enough for both of them.


	2. Chapter 2

2

August, 2030.

They sat on Snape's back porch under a rare cloudless, smiling sky. Al brought chicken sandwiches from home. He was drinking Cola out of a glass. Snape had his usual glass of whisky.

Al wore jeans, a junior football league t-shirt and trainers. Snape was wearing a strap-style t-shirt and tattered pants held up by suspenders. They looked like they had come from the very bottom of the last box in the consignment shop downtown. Tacky. Al was going to have to do something about the way Snape dressed when he was at home.

His old man's voice rose, papery, hesitant, sometimes barely audible. An observer might have thought them grandfather and grandson, the latter perhaps attending some rite of passage, a handing down from one generation to the next.

"And that's all I remember," he finished, and took a large bite of his chicken sandwich. Mayonnaise dribbled down the bony slab of his chin.

"Why'd you kill Dumbledore?" Al asked. It was something he had been wondering about. Some of the accounts didn't make sense.

"Ah, I wondered if you would get around to that," Snape said, and gave his gap-toothed grin. "The great Hero of the Light, dissolving from the inside out … you no doubt have many questions about that, eh?"

"Yeah. What's the deal?"

Snape sipped reflectively from his cup. "I joined the Death Eaters at the behest of Dumbledore, did you know that? Yes indeed," he said, responding to Al's look of surprise. "Dumbledore was looking for someone to spy on their activities. Unlike the others he approached—Malfoy, Avery, Mulciber—I had nothing to lose. I agreed."

"What do you mean, 'nothing to lose'?"

"I had no family, no real friends, and no one he or the Dark Lord could use as leverage against me."

"But I thought … you and my grandmother-"

"Pah. Your grandmother was a high-boxed Mudblood cunt who had to marry above her station to get anywhere," Snape said, flipping his hand dismissively. "We grew up next to each other, it is true, and we were friends of a sort, this is also true. But she did not have what it took to make it in the real world. And look what all her dewy-eyed idealism got her."

Snape smiled at Al's reddening face.

"Shocked you, did I? Probably thought your grandparents were saints, eh? You didn't know that your grandfather once took a little Slytherin first year named Severus Snape, stole his wand and locked him in a closet behind silencing charms for a weekend, did you? You didn't know your grandmother put up a great front in public but was the biggest slut in Hogwarts, did you?"

"All of that is a lie! My grandmother stood up for you in your fifth year! She died so my father could live!"

"Ah, the famous O.W.L. caper," Snape said, and now he almost look like the Severus Snape that had terrified ten years of Hogwarts students as their potions master. "I suppose Lupin must have told you about that. Is he still alive, by the way?"

"No, he died five years ago. And he told me that you called her a Mudblood when she was trying to get my grandfather to leave you alone."

Snape lit a cigarette and idly made smoke rings with it in the air. "She did me no favours, boy. She had her public reputation to uphold, yes? Couldn't be seen as anything but pure. It got even worse after her death. The selfless Madonna, martyring herself for her child. Your father. It made me sick, the way they idolized your father and grandparents."

Al was silent. It had often struck him over the years that he almost never heard anything bad about his grandparents. They were both heroes, with spotless reputations. Now, hearing from someone who knew them, hearing that they had not in fact been perfect symbols of virtue made him feel a sour kind of triumph. It never occurred to him that Snape might be lying. After the initial burst of anger over what Snape had said about his grandmother, Al was almost eager to hear more about them. Similar to the way he wanted to hear about the camps. But that would lead them off track. Maybe later he would find out more about his grandparents, but they weren't of immediate interest.

"Never mind them. We were discussing Dumbledore."

"When I joined the Death Eaters, I had to undergo a Legilimency assault. The Dark Lord found out that Dumbledore had sent me. I expected to be killed on the spot. Instead he smiled—or at least as close as he could get to one—and took me aside. He showed me some memories."

Snape paused. A bird shrilled from a tree nearby. A dog yelped from beyond the fence. Neither of them paid any attention.

"Dumbledore was Gellert Grindelwald's lover once upon a time. They apparently met in Godric's Hollow around 1899. The famous duel was no more than a sham. Grindelwald was put into Nurmengard where he died in 2002, or so I heard.

"Wow," Al said.

"Quite. It turns out that Dumbledore and Grindelwald only disagreed in methodology, rather than philosophy. The Dark Lord found this highly amusing as I'm sure you can guess. He went to see Grindelwald in 1968. Broke in through the window. Got a lot of ideas from him, like using the camps. Grindelwald was masquerading under the name Heinrich Glücks during World War II, and it was he who oversaw the economic aspect of the Nazi concentration camps."

"Why do you think Voldemort didn't release him? Maybe cause a little diversion," Al asked.

"The Dark Lord wanted no competition, boy. He wanted to be the only game in town, as the saying goes. That's basically why he wanted Dumbledore killed."

"But why the sleeper poison?"

"Think, boy, think. Don't be a dunderhead. A new teacher—a former Death Eater no less—joins the staff and a month later Dumbledore keels over? You don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to work that one out. I started giving him the sleeper poison after the Dark Lord fell, upon his previous instructions. Dumbledore still thought I was working for him, of course. Everything worked out rather nicely."

"But if you thought he was dead, why'd you follow his instructions?"

"Because I wanted to," Snape said, looking at Al as though he thought the boy might be a little dim. "The man was a smug sanctimonious bastard. I knew not when the right opportunity would arise, but I was sure it would, eventually. So I kept at it."

"And when Voldemort rose again…"

"I knew that killing Dumbledore would grant me instant forgiveness and I would be elevated to a higher status than every other Death Eater. That would help increase the odds of my survival. And I was right."

They sat in silence for a while. Al was feeling a little cheated. He was hoping for more dirt, but all Snape did was motivated by self-interest. He decided to get back to his original purpose.

"That was interesting, all right, but we got a little side tracked. Tell me more about how the prisoners arrived."

And Snape talked to him about prisoner intake, about the cavity searches, and about prisoner selection, while Al smiled and smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

3

September, 2030.

Al was in the kitchen of his house making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. His brother and sister were off somewhere, James probably talking to a new girl on his communications mirror and Lily no doubt off in the woods somewhere with her sketch pad. Pathetic, Al thought, smearing jelly on the bread.

His mother came into the kitchen then. Not a bad-looking chick for forty-nine, Al mused to himself, watching her come up the stairs from the living room. Petite, her red hair much shorter than she used to wear it, now tied back with a purple clip in the shape of a dragon. She was wearing cut-off jeans, and a paint-splattered tank top. Still pretty much in fighting trim. She worked for the _Daily Prophet_ now, after retiring from professional Quidditch just before Al was born, in 2017.

"Hey, Al old pal," she greeted him.

""Minny Ginny," Al responded amiably enough, a nickname he'd given her after he finally grew taller than her.

She came all the way into the kitchen and kissed him lightly on the eyebrow. "How's school?" she asked, settling on one of the stools by the kitchen island.

"School's cool."

"Going to be on the honour roll this year?"

"You bet." Actually, he thought his grades might slip a bit this term. He had been spending a lot of time with Snape, and when he wasn't actually with the old bat, he was thinking about the things Snape had told him. A couple of times he had dreamed about the things Snape had told him. But it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

"You'll make it again, I know it," she said, ruffling his messy black hair. "Want to make me one of those sandwiches and bring it to my office?"

Al swallowed the last bite of his own sandwich. "Can't. I promised Mr Craven I'd come over to his house and read to him for an hour or so."

"Are you still on _Great Expectations?"_

"Nah. We finished that last week." Al reached down to the backpack at his feet and pulled out a fat book that he'd bought for a pound in the junk shop. He showed her the spine. _Finnigan's Wake._

"Ye gods. It'll take you the whole year to finish that, Al. Couldn't you find an abridged version?"

"Probably, but he said he wanted to hear all of this one."

"Oh," she said, and then looked at him for a moment. Then she came over and hugged him. It was pretty unusual for his mother to be so demonstrative, and it made Al a bit nervous. "You're a champ to take so much of your spare time to read to him. Your father and I think it's just … just exceptional. And to not tell anyone. Hiding your light under a bushel."

Al cast his eyes down modestly and blushed. "Aw, you know how it is. The kids I chum with would probably think I'm off my bacon. All that good shit."

"Don't say that," she admonished lightly. Then: "You think Mr Craven would like to come over for dinner some time?"

"I'll ask him," Al said vaguely. "Look, I gotta scoot. Catch you in a couple hours."

"You bet. Dad's at work till eight or nine, so it'll just be us four. Supper's at six-thirty, don't forget.

"I won't."

"Toodles!"

Al waved and trotted out to the carport, where he parked his bike. Ginny watched him go with a fond smile. The words would never pass her lips, but Al was by far her favourite of their three kids. James at sixteen was already turning into something of an arrogant, self-centred womaniser; and Lily Luna…

Well, Ginny wasn't quite sure what to make of their youngest. She had only just started at Hogwarts this year, a quiet, shy girl who spent most of her spare time in the woods behind their house with a pencil and sketch pad or paints. If it wasn't for the shared family features, Ginny would have doubted Lily was their child at all, she was so different.

But Al was bright, good-natured, charming. He was athletic and he was a shining example of boyhood. All O's and E's at school, joined a junior football league during the summer, had friends on both sides of the divide.

_We did okay by the lad,_ Ginny thought, still smiling as she headed back to her office. _Damned if we didn't do okay._


	4. Chapter 4

4 October, 2030.

Snape had lost weight. They sat in his kitchen, autumn rain beating against the dirty windows, the tattered copy of _Finnigan's Wake_ sitting on the checked tablecloth between them. Al, who tried never to miss a trick, had gone online at the Raven's Glen public library and read the cliff notes on the book against the possibility that his parents might ask him questions on the plot.

There were two slices of last night's carrot cake sitting between them. Al had brought them over, wrapped in waxed paper and a plastic bag so they wouldn't get wet. Al had eaten his while listening to Snape, but the old man was just staring morosely at his slice as he sipped his whisky. If Snape wasn't going to eat it, Al was going to ask him if he could have it; he hated to see anything as tasty as his mother's carrot cake go to waste.

""So how did you get the stuff to Brecon?" Al asked.

"The Muggle transport system. Railroad cars. Potions of that calibre are too delicate to be transported via Portkey or Apparition. There was no suitable laboratory at the camp, so I made it in one of the Ministry labs. The inmates offloaded the crates. Later our own men stacked them in the sheds behind the showers.

"The high command—meaning the Dark Lord and those who attended him—was always interested in improving efficiency. From time to time they gave me recipes for their own potions which I was instructed to brew. Once they gave me one code-named Archangel. Thank God they never sent it again. It-"

Snape saw Al lean forward, eyes bright with interest. He broke off and gestured casually with his omnipresent cigarette. "It didn't work very well. It was … quite boring."

Al was not fooled, however. "What did it do?"

"It killed them—what did you think it did, made them sing Christmas carols? It killed them, that's all."

"Tell me."

"No," Snape said, now unable to hide the horror and revulsion he felt. He hadn't thought of Archangel in how long? Ten years? Twenty? "I refuse!"

"Tell me," Al repeated, licking cream cheese icing off his fingers. "Tell me or you know what."

_Yes, I know what. Indeed I do, you putrid little monster,_ Snape thought. _No different than your grandfather…_

"It made them boil," Snape said reluctantly.

Al listened, fascinated, a forkful of cake suspended between the plate and his mouth.

"It came out of the showers, like the others. But at first nothing happened. Then there was a smell, like autumn flowers and dead leaves; not at all unpleasant. And then the sounds started. There was the hissing sound of blood boiling in their veins, the sounds of their heads exploding as their brains popped like chestnuts, the smaller popping sounds of men's testicles popping like corn kernels in a skillet. And the screams. I will never forget the screams…"

Snape stared into the distance, his eyes hazed and far away with memory, his face cold as a dead planet. He was experiencing the queerest combination of horror, revulsion and—could it be? Nostalgia?

"But that was not the worst of it. It didn't affect all of them the same way. Some of them only partially boiled, and they lay there on the concrete, yes, they lay there twitching and screaming and slowly cooking like chicken breasts in a microwave oven. I sent five men in there to finish them off with Killing Curses, probably because we couldn't wait long enough for them to die on their own, even though men and women like that couldn't have lasted long. It would've looked bad on my record, but I trusted those men. And we sent the log book back, marking Archangel as a failure.

"There were times, boy, when I thought I would never forget the sound of bodies exploding in the shower, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. The screams. The … the splattering."

"Yeah, I bet," Al said. He finished off Snape's slice of cake in two bites. "That was a good story, Mr Snape. You always tell them good. Once I get you going."

Al smiled at Snape. And incredibly—certainly not because he wanted to—Snape found himself smiling back.


	5. Chapter 5

5

November, 2030.

Harry Potter was one of those men who found himself struck anew, and at the oddest times, by the fact of his advancing age. He would be walking along the shop-lined high street of Raven's Glen and he would catch a glimpse of a man with greying hair in a shop window. And he would feel a nasty start when he realised it was he. Where did all the years go?

Deep down inside, he still saw himself as that scrawny boy with the untidy black hair who had to leave Privet Drive every summer.

That was not the external picture he presented, however. Over the years, Harry had, with the aid of some regimented nutritional potions and a carefully orchestrated physical training program, grown into a lean, six-foot-two and one hundred and ninety pounds. His untidy hair had grown out to just above his collar and was gently going grey at the temples. Tiny crow's feet had begun to appear at the corners of his eyes, which were as clear green as ever.

The somewhat serene and self-possessed man who was now sitting at his desk perusing his youngest son's report card was a far cry from the broken shell of humanity that Ginny Weasley had come upon in London, on the occasion of Harry's twentieth birthday.

After Dumbledore's horrifying and public death, Harry had stayed behind at Hogwarts and studied all summer. He had learned of the infamous come-and-go room from the house-elves and had pushed himself so hard in learning magical combat that he had rendered himself unconscious. After learning of this, Mad-Eye Moody had condescended to take him in hand.

They learned of the prophecy from Dumbledore's newly active portrait, but largely discounted it. It wasn't until they discovered Harry's famous scar contained a bit of Tom Riddle's soul that they came to a full realisation of the prophecy's meaning.

Events were orchestrated whereby Voldemort sent a Killing Curse at Harry. Harry woke up from it and, following one of the most intense magical fights in history, the Dark Lord Voldemort had been vanquished.

But at what cost?

_Over sixty-five thousand people had died, while Harry had struggled to learn enough to bring the war to an end. Harry left behind society and obligations and retreated into Twelve Grimmauld Place, where he proceeded to destroy himself from within by means of trying to drink every bottle of liquor in London. That massive number_

_Sixty-five thousand_

Did not ring so loudly in his head when it was full of tequila and whisky and bourbon. He began to look like one of the camp victims himself, because he barely ate anything.

So things went on for another three years. Then, a determined red head named Ginny Weasley broke through the wards on his house. She found Harry Potter, hero of the war, lying in his own filth on the kitchen floor, surrounded by liquor bottles and newspaper clippings of the atrocities found at the camps once they were liberated.

_Ginny waded through the mess, seized a handful of Harry's greasy hair and slapped him hard across the face._

"Wha—?" Harry muttered fuzzily.

Ignoring his weak protests and stench, Ginny dragged him upstairs and threw him in an icy shower. She scrubbed him like a baby, then force-fed him cup after cup of black coffee.

"Now," she told him briskly, after about the fourth cup and restored some sort of marginal awareness to his bloodshot eyes. "You've had your three-year long pity party and I think that's enough. You're going to have a good long sleep, and you are going to sober up and re-join the world again. Am I in any way unclear?"

"But—"

"I said. Am. I. In. Any. Way. Unclear?" she said, pounding the table with her small fist.

"Er, no," he muttered, and staggered off to bed, where he slept his first dreamless sleep in what felt like geological ages.

Over the next year, Ginny dragged Harry relentlessly out of his depression. She forbade him to have another drink and destroyed every bottle of liquor in the house, ignoring his cries and his easy, self-pitying tears.

He made love to Ginny three months after she took him in hand, and Ginny let him, understanding in the way most females understand such things that it was an essential part of his recovery. If it hadn't been her, it would've been somebody else. It was an affirmation that he was alive, that he deserved victory, and that life would indeed go on. Afterward, she held him while he wept for almost an hour straight, his seed drying on her thighs and tears glimmering unseen in her own eyes. This was such a good, good man, and he did not deserve what had happened to him. A fierce protectiveness rose within her. She would do anything to help him. And Merlin help anyone who tried to do him harm.

They did not, of course, exist in a vacuum. Many times Harry went to the Burrow and took meals there. Miraculously, all the Weasleys survived the war. Bill had taken a bad biting from Greyback during a battle, and George had lost an ear, but other than that, the whole family was remarkably intact. They attended Bill and Fleur's wedding, and shortly thereafter, that of Fred and Angelina Johnson. Ron married Luna the next year, but Hermione remained single.

While Ginny was fiercely protective of Harry, she did not exactly love him the way a woman loves a man. Her feelings for Harry could not be very easily classified. There was a confusing jumble of female love, filial love and that of an extremely close friend. And a part of her feared that, if she were to leave him behind and seek her own love interest, Harry might backslide into the condition she found him in.

Thus, they found themselves married in 2005. Ginny was enjoying a successful Quidditch career, while Harry was working as a prosecutor for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Ginny did not feel trapped by her marriage to Harry. He was very pleasant to live with, attentive to her needs, and not at all hard to please, himself.

Yet she took on lovers.

Only one or two a year. Men she met on tour with the team. And only when the need was particularly great.

What need?

A very good question, she often times asked herself in the aftermaths of these anonymous couplings. What exactly was she doing, letting these strange men grunt and slobber away on top of her, when she had a perfectly good husband at home?

Every time she finished with them, she would curl up in a ball on the bottom of the shower in the motel room and sob as the hot water beat down on her, thin threads of the stranger's semen running out of her. Why did she do this to herself?

She didn't know that Harry knew about her little adventures. One time about a year before Al was born, he had gone to Tinwroth in Cornwall to surprise his wife and take her out after the game (which they had won.) He had arrived in time to see her go into her hotel room with a strange man's hand on her arse. And she was giggling.

Harry was not crushed or even hurt by his discovery. Like Ginny, he didn't exactly love her as a man loves a woman. He was eternally grateful to her for pulling him out of his self-destructive cycle and had stayed with her more out of inertia than anything else. A body at rest tends to stay that way. He was content. They had a happy three-year-old son, a loving extended family, satisfying careers. And if he didn't understand everything that made her tick, even after having been married to her this long … well, no one ever can tell what's truly in another human being's heart. The human soul contains an infinity of rooms, some of them light and cheery, others dark and shadowed. And deep in Harry's own heart was the thought that Ginny also only stayed with him out of inertia. A body at rest staying at rest. And maybe she was getting something from these men that she wasn't getting from him.

Although what that could be, Harry had no clue.

So Harry went home and got on with life. And Ginny came home, kissed him on the cheek and played with their son. And when she quit playing professional Quidditch after Al was born and went to work for the newspaper, she still went out occasionally. Only once or twice a year. Only for a night. Harry did not trouble himself to follow her. Like that old song by the Eagles, he knew where she was going when she was leaving.

Eventually, Harry found his own lover. His head of department, Lisa Turpin. Why? To balance the scales? To prove his own virility? To prove to himself that he didn't always have to remain at rest, that he was capable of his own motions?

Perhaps all of the above. But in the end, it came down to physical attraction and a kind of addiction.

Ginny Potter was small, delicate, almost a pixie. Barely five-feet-two and a hundred five pounds, she was one of those women whom Harry thought of as clothes hangers. They could make clothes look good because there was almost nothing to distort the lines of the garments as they fell from neck to ankles. She had had to have all three children by magical C-section because her pelvic structure was just too small. In fact, after Lily was born, she had told him, "That's the last one, buster. No more babies, okay?"

Lisa was different. She was almost as tall as Harry. She exuded raw sexuality, and she was built like a fertility goddess. But she wanted nothing to do with anyone in the office. The prevailing rumour around the department was that she batted for the other team.

Then, one night, Harry had come into her office to deliver a final report, only to find Lisa with her head on her arms, crying her heart out. The whole department was deserted save the two of them, and Harry didn't know what to do. He never got over his discomfort around crying females.

Before he could do anything, however, Lisa had raised up her head at the sound of the door opening.

"Who's there?" she sniffled.

Harry closed the door and advanced in the dim office. "It's me, Harry," he said. Awkward did not even begin to describe how he felt. "I have that report on-"

But Lisa was up and coming at him. The expression on her face was alarming; at first Harry didn't know if she was going to hit him or hug him. Before he could move though, she had crashed into him, sending him stumbling back a step. Then she was sobbing again, her head on his shoulder, her arms clutched at him desperately.

Harry, feeling more awkward than ever, stroked her long, wavy hair. It hung in sweaty clots around her face. Some girls could still look good when crying. Lisa was not one of them. Her eyes were puffy, her nose ran and her face was blotchy.

At last, the sobs wound down to choked snuffles and gasps. She lifted her head off his now decidedly damp shoulder and gazed blearily up at him.

"I'm sorry … what must you think of me … I look a mess…" All the usual noises women make when feeling self-conscious. She backed away from him and began fumbling in her purse for tissues and studiously did not look at him. It was somewhat endearing, and Harry had to suppress a smile in spite of the gravity of the situation. Around the office, Lisa was something of a taskmaster, famous for her sharp tongue and cutting wit. To see her so feminine and exposed was something of a treat, even if she had to be crying her eyes out to get that way.

Harry made the usual sympathetic noises men make when they have no clue how else to react: "You're fine … don't worry … you're not all that bad." Et cetera.

Eventually he got Lisa calmed down enough to tell him what happened. It seemed that she had left the department early to surprise her boyfriend with a romantic dinner, only to find him in the throes of passion with none other than her mother. On Lisa's own bed. Lisa had forgotten all her magical training and thrown a heavy ceramic bookend at the two of them and fled back to the office.

"What will you do now?" Harry asked, properly shocked and sympathetic.

Lisa gave a long, watery sigh. "I just don't know, Harry. I just don't know." And then she cried again.

It might've ended there—Lisa going home to kick her boyfriend out and Harry to his wife and her occasional escapades, the two of them going back to engaging in purely professional interactions. It might've ended there except for the fact that Susan Bones, the overall head of Magical Law Enforcement after her aunt, had sent the two of them up to work with Aurors stationed in Yorkshire to bring the masterminds behind a series of robberies to trial. They would be up there for perhaps a week, building the case and assisting with jurisdictional paperwork. Ginny of course had not been particularly happy—Lily had just been born and his absence meant she would have to deal with all the child care by herself, but no one else was available.

And on the third night, they had gone to the bar in the pub (they were staying in Muggle accommodations since magical pubs pretty much did not exist outside of the Leaky Cauldron and Hogsmeade) and had begun talking about personal things. And to cut the proverbial long story short, after they had gone to bed in their adjoining rooms, there had been a knock at his door and there Lisa was, in nothing but a nightgown.

About twenty years previously, there had been a song released in America, and one of the lines went: "_All you know is when I'm with you; I make you free, and swim through your veins like a fish in the sea_…" It had been like that. Harry thought of that old song often in the weeks following their first coupling, when it seemed he could never get enough of her.

Making love to Lisa had been something of a revelation. She was completely opposite from his wife in every way. She was an avatar of femininity. Her curves heroic, her nightgown swelling in tidal waves across her bosom and hips. And when she took him down on the bed and wrapped her thighs around him, and he sank blissfully into her hot core, he felt like he was drowning in pure pleasure. For the first time, he felt like he was desired for himself, not as though he was a duty, the way one becomes truly mindful of something only in its absence.

Later, Lisa confessed that she had wanted to do that for years. "There's something about you, Harry," she told him, lying in a feline pose beside him, her nipples poking at the sheet draped over them in a way that made him feel a little delirious. "There's some kind of inner peace about you now that you didn't have when we were in school together. Like you came over the top of some high mountain that you didn't realise you were climbing…" She shrugged a bit, tugging nervously at one of her curls. "And I always got the feeling that you…" She trailed off, looking uncertain.

Harry had been stroking her soft thigh as she spoke, and now he stopped, looking at her questioningly. "That I what?"

"Well," she said, now looking hesitant, "I don't know. It's like the two of you - you and your wife, I mean - are just … dancing. She loves you in a way, and you love her in a way but…"

But Harry had been struck with insight. It was like the way someone tells you the word that is dancing on the tip of your tongue, the expression of a concept that has flitted maddeningly just out of reach. Dancing, that was just how it was. They were engaged in a slow, almost invisible dance. Each of them for various reasons afraid to let go of the other one.

"Harry? What is it?" She was sitting up now, a soft hand on his back.

"You've just put your finger on it. What's wrong with my marriage," he said feverishly, rubbing a hand up his lightly stubbled cheek. "It's like we're both afraid to make the wrong move and send the whole thing crashing down."

"Yes. But you do love her, and she loves you."

"In a way. She did a lot for me, and I saved her life once, but…"

"So you got married sort of by default."

"Yeah, sort of. I mean, it's a good marriage, even if she does take a lover from time to time, like I told you in the bar earlier. I'm not sure why she does it, but if that's what she wants…"

"And what about you? What did we just do?" Lisa picked her teeth with her thumbnail, not looking at him now.

"I'm not saying I'm any better. I was just about to say that I wasn't really bothered by her little … adventures, and if it really was a good marriage, I should've been, right?"

She turned back to him, soft again. "I don't know, Harry. I guess that's for you to decide. But for now, come here."

After that, they had gotten together often. Harry just couldn't get enough of her. She dominated his thoughts, kept him almost constantly hard, and made him question many things about his life.

Yet on the other hand he went on being the quintessential family man. His years growing up with the Dursleys taught him much about keeping secrets, and he didn't believe that even now, almost ten years after it started, anyone was aware of his little affair with Lisa. They never went out of their way to be secretive, but they didn't flaunt it either. They would meet outside work in places where they legitimately had a reason to be. No stolen moments in the washroom or a closet. Lisa was too good a woman to treat in that cavalier a manner.

Even if someone did know, Harry doubted he would care much. They went on being very good prosecutors and did not let their outside activities interfere with that more important job.

Only a few seconds had passed while Harry remembered. Seeing his youngest son, who looked so much like him as he had been, had sent him into a strange mood. Now he pushed his glasses up his nose (they had been seriously upgraded from the taped together pair he used to have and he now looked somewhat like a college dean) and tapped the boy's report card, frowning at Al.

"An A, Four P's … A D. A D, for Merlin's sake! You've never gotten a card like this, Al. What's the deal? Your mother's not showing it, but she's really upset."

Al dropped his eyes and stared at his knees. He did not smile. When his father swore, it usually was not the best of news.

"A D in Basic Maths and Arithmancy? My God, you've never done this badly before."

"I don't know, Dad." Al kept staring humbly at his knees.

"Your mother and I think you've maybe been spending a little too much time with Mr Craven. Not hitting the books hard enough. We think you ought to cut it down to weekends, son. At least until your marks pick up…"

Al looked up and for a moment Harry thought he saw a wild, pallid anger in the boy's eyes. His own eyes widened and his fingers clenched on the parchment … and then it was just Al looking back at him, his expression open, if rather unhappy. Had that anger really been there? Surely not. Harry could read his son like a book. It had always been that way. Probably because Al was so much like him, only the better version.

"No, Dad, please don't do that. I mean, don't punish Mr Craven for something I did. He'd be lost without me. I'll do better, really. That maths, it sort of stumped me at first, but I went over to Aunt Hermione's house and she helped me with it. I wasn't the only one either. Lots of kids got D's and a few even got T's."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. Maths had always been hard for him too. And what he'd said about punishing Craven for Al's falling off… that made sense to him. That old man looked forward to his visits so much. And it was hard to refuse his kids anything, because he'd been refused so much at their age.

Al could read his father's eyes. "I'll stay here on weekends and study, and I'll only go to see him on Monday and Wednesday."

"You really like the old guy that much?"

"He's really interesting," Al said sincerely.

Harry sighed and tapped his fingers on the report card again. "Well, all right then. We'll try it your way, pal. But I want to see a definite improvement in your marks at the end of the term, okay? You might think it's too early to start thinking about your future, but it isn't. Not by a long chalk. You understand me here?"

Al nodded gravely: Man-to-man stuff. "I understand, Dad. And I'm sorry."

Harry nodded, reached across and clapped his son on the shoulder. "Go and give those books a workout then."

"Right on, Dad!" Al rose and beamed at his father. Harry smiled himself as he watched his son leave the study. He was a great kid, one in a million. He and Ginny got something right, at least. And that hadn't been anger on Al's face. Pique, maybe, but not that intense high voltage emotion he thought he'd seen. If Al was that upset, he would've known. He could read his son like a book.

Smiling, and thinking about his next meeting with Lisa, with pleasure if not the almost overwhelming need he'd had ten years ago, Harry put Al's report into the drawer and bent over his case file.


	6. Chapter 6

6

December, 2030.

The face that came in response to Al's insistent finger on the bell was haggard and yellowed. The hair, which had been lush in July, was now thinning and drawing back from the bony forehead. New lines seemed to have carved themselves in the seams around his caved-in mouth. He was now gaunt, although not, Al thought, nearly as gaunt as the inmates which had once been delivered into his tender mercies.

Al's left hand had been behind his back while he rang the bell. Now, he brought it out and handed a wrapped box to Snape. "Merry Christmas!" he yelled.

Snape took the package with no expression of pleasure or surprise; he handled it as though it might contain something noxious or explosive, holding it gingerly away from himself. The box had been wrapped in gay foil and ribbon. Over the past week, the West Country had been experiencing periods of rain and sleet, and Al had carried the box snug under his jacket.

"What is it?" Snape asked in a toneless voice as they headed for the kitchen.

"Open it and see," Al invited, removing a can of Cola from his jacket and setting it on the tablecloth. "Better pull down the shades," he added confidentially.

A distrustful expression immediately broke across Snape's faced. "Oh? Why is that?"

"Well, you can't ever tell who's lookin'," Al replied. "Isn't that how you stayed free all these years? By seein' the people who might be lookin' before they saw you?"

Snape didn't answer. He pulled the shades down. Poured a glass of whisky, and stood in front of the package for a moment. Al had wrapped it the way most young boys wrapped presents—boys who had much more important things on their minds, like who was going to win the junior league football championship that year, or the latest episode of Doctor Who, or presents they themselves might get. There were lots of uneven seams and wads of scotch tape sticking everyplace. It bespoke impatience with such a girly thing.

Snape was a little touched in spite of himself. And later, when the horror receded, he thought: _I should have known_.

It was a uniform: A Death Eater uniform. Complete with buckled boots. Snape looked numbly to the black robes and tunic folded in the box to the cardboard top: _HAMMERSMITH's QUALITY COSTUME CLOTHIERS—AT THE SAME LOCATION SINCE 1991!_

Snape's gaze rose to the boy. "No. I won't put it on. I'll die before I put it on. This is where it ends, boy."

"Remember what they did to the Lestranges?" Al said in a solemn voice. "They were old and of no harm to anyone. That's what you said. You didn't mind wearing it in 1980 or in 1997, either."

"You little bastard!" Snape's fist rose and he took a step toward Al.

Al didn't flinch. "Yeah," he said, eyes shining. "You go right on and touch me. You just touch me once."

Snape shivered and lowered the hand. "You are a fiend from hell," he muttered, lips quivering.

"Put it on," Al invited.

Snape's hand went to the tie holding his tacky old man's bathrobe shut. HIs eyes came up to Al's again, pleading. "Please. I am an old man. No more."

Al, his own eyes still shining, slowly shook his head. He liked it when Snape begged. The way the prisoners must have.

Snape let the robe fall from his shoulders. He was now naked save for his boxer shorts. His chest was sunken, his belly slightly bloated. HIs old man's arms were scrawny sticks. His legs were as white as a trout's belly and covered with swollen veins above his hairy ankles. The uniform, though, Al thought. The uniform will make a difference.

Slowly, Snape started to get into the black trousers with all the grace of a geriatric man. Buttoning them up, he reached for the black tunic. With a heavy sigh of utmost reluctance, he finally put on the black robe and cap. Then, with a look of deepest loathing, he picked up the transparent mask with its skull emblem and put it on.

At last he stood there, fully dressed in the Death Eater uniform. His mask was slightly askew, his feet at a cockeyed angle, but he looked for the first time the way Al thought he should look. Defeated, certainly, old, undoubtedly, but in uniform again. Not a drunken old man whiling away his final years watching reruns of _Hollyoaks_ on an ancient LCD television with a crack in the bottom corner of the screen, but Severus Snape, the Potions-Fiend of Lockwood.

As for Snape, he felt disgust, discomfort, and a mild, sneaking sense of relief. He despised himself for this latter emotion, recognising it as a manifestation of the psychological domination the boy had established over him. He was the boy's prisoner, and every time he found he could live through yet another indignity, every time he felt that mild, sneaking relief, the boy's power grew.

And yet, he was relieved. It was only cloth and snaps and buckles … and a sham, at that. The fly on the trousers was a zipper; it should've been a button. The rank markings were wrong. The skull and snake insignia was upside down and on the right breast instead of the left. The mask was too bright instead of pale white, like bone. The tailoring was sloppy and the buckled boots that came with it were suede instead of leather. It was a complete fraud, nothing but a trumpery uniform after all. And it wasn't actually hurting him, was it? No. It—

"Straighten your cap!" Al called out suddenly.

Snape started. "What?"

"Straighten your cap, now!"

Snape did so, unconsciously giving it that final, insolent twist that had been his trademark—the sartorial equivalent of his usual sneer.

"Feet together!" Al cried.

Snape brought his feet sharply together, doing the correct thing as easily as though the intervening years had slipped off as easily as his bathrobe.

"Attention!"

Snape snapped to attention, and for the first time Al was scared—really scared. Dimly he remembered his Aunt Hermione showing him a very old movie, about three years ago. He felt like the sorcerer's apprentice in that movie, who was able to get the brooms walking, but not possessing enough wit to get them to stop. This was not an old man slowly dying in genteel poverty. Snape was here.

Then, the tingling sense of fear was replaced by a rush of heady power.

"About face!"

Snape pivoted neatly, now facing the back wall and the grease splattered stove. Beyond the wall he saw the dusty grounds of Malfoy Manor, where the Dark Lord had used strict military discipline to render his Death Eaters into a homogenous, mindlessly obedient force.

"About face!"

He whirled again. This time the manoeuvre was not executed as neatly, one heel knocking against the other, causing him to stumble slightly. Once it would've been thirty seconds of Cruciatus and a hard hit in the belly with a Bludgeoning Curse. He smiled inwardly. The boy did not know all the tricks. No indeed.

"Now march!" The boy's eyes were hard, glowing.

The stiffness went out of Snape's back and shoulders and he slumped. "No. Please."

"March! March! March, I said!"

With a strangled sound, Snape began to boot step across the kitchen floor. He right-faced to avoid the wall, and right-faced again to avoid the table. His face was tilted up, expressionless, cold. His legs rammed out before him, then slammed down, making the cheap dishes in the cabinet above the sink rattle. His gaze was lost, somewhere far away in time. His arms moved in short arcs.

Al's earlier fright recurred, and he once again thought of the brooms in that old movie. It occurred to him that he perhaps had wanted to make Snape appear ludicrous more than he wanted him to appear authentic. But in spite of the man's age and in spite of the cheap dime store furnishings of this old kitchen, the man did not appear ludicrous at all; he looked frightening. For the first time, all the stories and the pictures of the tangled corpses lying in the ditches, and the soot-clotted crematoriums seemed to take on their own reality. The bodies weren't props created by a special effects guy, piles of conjured and transfigured bodies to be picked up and put back in place after the scene was shot. They were a real thing, stupendous and inexplicably evil. And for a moment, overlaying the scents of disuse and age, he could smell the high, somewhat smoky aroma of decay.

Terror engulfed him.

"Stop!" he cried.

Snape continued to march, his gaze still lost and far away. His head had come up even more and his scrawny, old man's neck was taut, tilting his chin at an arrogant angle. His nose, outlined against the transparent cloth of the mask and still hooked and long, jutted obscenely.

"Halt!" Al shouted. Sweat had pooled in his armpits.

Snape's right leg came forward, and then his left followed it for a final piston-like stamp. For a breathless moment the cold lack of expression held—robotic, mindless—then it was replaced with confusion. Confusion gave way to defeat. He slumped.

Al silently let out the breath he had been holding in relief and then he was furious with himself. _Who's in charge here? I am._ And he better not forget it.

He began to smile again, his fear replaced with soaring self-confidence. "Pretty good," he said. "But with a little practice, I think you'll be a lot better."

Snape stood mute, his head hanging.

"You can take it off now," Al added, sounding like a king conferring a great favour … and part of him wondered if he even wanted Snape to put it on again. For a few seconds there—

# # #

James Sirius Potter was grinning inwardly as he kissed the girl. He hated kissing, but it was a necessary preliminary before the real festivities. And if he was reading the signs right—and he was an expert—she was nearly ready to begin those festivities. So many girls wanted to be with the son of the famous war hero. He had been cultivating this one ever since the start of term, and she was nearly ready to spread those legs for him.

"Oh James," the girl purred, breaking the lip lock and manoeuvring feverishly in the broom closet they were in. "I want you so bad."

James used the fact that her face was slightly turned away to ogle her breasts. Not up to his usual standards; they looked like the pull knobs on a bureau drawer. Still, beggars couldn't' be choosers. The expression that flashed across his face in the brief second the girl looked away was hungry, lecherous, and not at all healthy. But when she was facing him again, he was smiling, his hazel eyes dancing merrily.

"Here I am, Laura," he said, moving back to her.

And then the spell was shattered. There was a moment of silence when James realised that Laura was the girl from last week—the girl with the long, long nipples. When she was excited, they stood up from her breasts like tiny cocks. Thinking about breasts had gotten him remembering those, and he had slipped up and called this silly bitch another girl's name. It was so stupid he could've howled with laughter.

"My name is Elizabeth," she spat at him, pulling back and giving him a glare. "I guess what the other girls said was true."

"Wait. I'm sorry, Liza," he said (now he remembered what he was supposed to call the silly bird, now he did), putting on a contrite expression. "Heat of the moment, okay?"

"No, James," Elizabeth said, dodging out of his reach. "Just leave me the hell alone."

Then she was gone out the broom closet door, leaving James Sirius Potter sitting on a bucket, red with rage and suppressing a mad urge to go after her and choke the life out of her. How dare she do that to him! It wasn't his fault. It was an honest mistake. But the stupid cunt had … just … left. Didn't she realise who he was?

Still furious but back under marginal control, James left the broom closet, tugging his robes straight and headed for the Gryffindor common room. He needed a drink.

# # #

Lily Luna Potter stirred for the first time in half an hour. She was sitting under a tree by the Hogwarts lake waiting for a family of deer to come out of the edges of the forest to drink. She did not notice the cold seeping into her, or the wind, heralding snow, blowing through the branches of the tree she was under. Her focus was on the edge of the forest a hundred yards away.

At last, her patience was rewarded. The doe, a ten-point buck and a mostly grown fawn came shyly from under the trees and trotted across to the lake. Lily heard their hooves clopping on the hard ground. She saw the doe's eyes, huge and brown, regarding her with mild interest, but no fear as they came up to the lakes' edge.

Slowly, she began to sketch them, her pencil moving with sure strokes across her pad. And as was usual, the motion soothed her troubled mind.

Lily was by far the smartest and most sensitive of the three Potter children. She first became aware that things weren't as they seemed last year, on an outing with her uncle Teddy Lupin. He had taken her to an art exhibition in Cardiff. He was an artist, also, and she had learned much of her craft from him. They were walking down a street to catch the Knight Bus back to Godric's Hollow, when, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw her mother in the pub they were passing. She slowed down a little and turned to look straight in the window.

Sure enough, there was her mum, standing in a circle of young men, all leering at her. And her mum was smiling.

Lily sped back up before her mother could turn her head and see her. She spoke to no one about what she had seen once she returned home, but began to go for more frequent walks in the woods around the three towns of Raven's Glen, Godric's Hollow, and Greaves. James looked upon her as a nuisance, Al was too busy playing the perfect son and her father was…

Lily gave a sigh; her pencil paused on the pad in the midst of sketching the buck's antlers. Her father was an enigma. He seemed perfectly happy, but sometimes when he thought no one was looking, Lily thought she saw a shadow pass across his face. Some shadow.

Six years ago, her father had expanded the house to a third floor and stretched it out a bit to accommodate a couple of new rooms. This had left a little angle between old house and new house on the third floor, an angle between the past and the present, you might say, and sometimes thinking about that metaphor made Lily feel a little uneasy. Into this angle a window seat had been tucked behind a half wall. It was a cosy little place to sit and watch the countryside, and Lily had spent many an hour sitting there, thinking, reading or drawing. Her unease about the past and present formed part of her feelings about this place, only adding to its mystique.

An odd trick of acoustics made it so that almost anything said on the second floor made it to the ears of anyone sitting up there on that window seat. Lily supposed it had to do with the heating ducts, or the plumbing. Whatever.

One day earlier this summer Lily had been sitting up there, slightly drowsy in the summer heat, not thinking about much of anything except how nice it would be to go downstairs and find a glass of her mother's freshly squeezed lemonade. She had just about made up her mind to move when she heard:

"I love you too, Lisa." And then a smooching sound as the Floo connection was closed.

That had been the voice of her father in his second-floor study …

Talking to his head of department…

Telling her that he loved her…

The lemonade had been forgotten, as Lily sat and pondered that. Both her parents were seeing other people outside their marriage. What, exactly, did that mean? When they were together, they both seemed perfectly happy with each other. Except…

They didn't sleep together. They slept in twin beds separated by a nightstand. And that somehow seemed wrong. Weren't married people supposed to sleep together? Lily had always thought so, but her ideas about love and marriage had mostly come from the romance novels she and her few friends giggled over, when she was at their houses, and the televisions shows they watched.

They did kiss each other, and hold hands when they were out and about. Lily wasn't entirely sure if they actually meant it or if they were putting on a show, and that very uncertainty helped keep her awake at nights. How much of her life was real, and how much of it was just window dressing?

And Al was different this year, too, ever since July. Something was taking up his time, and she didn't at all think it had anything to do with reading to a reclusive old man. It was something not healthy for him.

Her thoughts was interrupted when the deer stopped drinking from the lake and trotted back into the trees, becoming just more shadows among shadows. And she hadn't even finished sketching them.

"They'll be back," a soft dreamy voice said behind her.

Lily did not jump. She had been aware of the presence back there for some time. "Hello, Luna," she said.

"Hello," Luna Weasley said, coming around to sit on Lily's left side and tucking her feet under her, just as easily as though this was her own sofa she was on and not the cold hard ground just before winter. She was the Magical Creatures instructor, having taken over when Hagrid passed away in 2018. Her husband Ronald ran the Hogsmeade branch of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.

They sat in silence for a while, Lily staring at the spot where the deer had disappeared and Luna staring seemingly at nothing at all.

"I'm worried about my parents," Lily said, as though continuing a previous thought. "They're … pretending … Or something."

Lily had always been able to talk to Luna, and not only because she was named after her. Both of them looked out at the world through a kind of filter that the uninitiated saw as flightiness and whimsy, but which was actually closer to pure genius. They spoke together more in the things they didn't say than in the things they did.

"They're happy enough," Luna said. "There is an old saying. Marry in haste, repent in leisure. They married in haste, but I don't believe they repent much."

"But why?"

"Because," Luna said gently, "they both needed each other. And in the end, they still do, even if they don't fully realise it still."

There was silence in the clearing by the lake, as Lily thought about that. Yes, she could see it. But, though she was very bright indeed, she was still only eleven. And she didn't fully grasp such adult things.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'm sure. I knew them both growing up—your mother more than your father—and I can tell you that, though you might doubt it, they both love each other, at least in a way. And they don't regret having you. None of you."

That was the thing which had been dancing down in the murky depths of Lily's mind. The far off Tibet of her darker thoughts. That she and her brothers had just been mistakes. Like her parents' marriage appeared to be. But she trusted Luna more than almost anyone, and if she said it was so, then it probably was.

"Don't worry," Luna said, wrapping an arm around the girl. "Things will work out. They usually do."

Thus reassured, both females turned once again to watch the lake, before Luna escorted her back to the castle. Curfew was nigh.


	7. Chapter 7

7

January, 2031.

Al left class by himself after the last bell, clutching his books under one arm. He paid no attention to the legions of shouting students running around him, but kept his head down, heading for the Portkey departure area.

The Portkey took him to his bedroom. He stood stock still for a moment, head still down, listening.

Nobody home.

He tossed his books on his bed and, even though there was nobody home, crept silently as a cat down the back stairs to his bicycle. He pedalled half a mile down the lane to the park by the Severn River. The one with all the trees.

After leaning the bike on its kickstand, Al found a bench nearby and sat on it. He took a look around to see if there was anyone he knew about, but the only people he saw were an older boy and girl making out a few yards away and a couple of Pakistani-looking hobos down by the river, passing a bottle back and forth. _Dirty fucking dune coons,_ he thought, but it wasn't the tramps which had upset him.

Al pulled his report card out of his jacket pocket and opened it.

Language Arts: D

Magical and Non-magical History: D

Basic Mathematics and Arithmancy: T

Potions: T

Transfiguration: T

Charms: P

Magical Defence: T

He stared at the grades, unbelieving. He had known it was going to be bad, but this went far beyond bad into disaster.

_Maybe that's best,_an inner voice spoke up suddenly. _Maybe you even did it on purpose, because a part of you wants it to end … Needs for it to end … Before something bad happens._

Al shoved the thought briskly away. Nothing bad was going to happen. Snape was under his thumb: Completely. The old man thought one of Al's friends had a letter, but he didn't know which friend. If anything happened to Al—anything—that letter would go to the constabulary.

It was a complete fabrication, of course. Al did have friends, but none he trusted that much. Maybe once, Snape probably might have tried it anyway. But now he was too old. Too old to run anywhere, even with a six day head start.

"He's under control, damn it," Al whispered, thumping his thigh hard enough to make the muscle knot. "Completely under control. Bet your arse."

Talking to yourself was bad shit—crazy people did that. It was a habbit he had picked up over the last six weeks or so, and he found himself unable to break it. A couple of times, he had caught people looking at him because of it; some of them teachers. And that fucking arsehole Scorpius Malfoy had come right out and asked if he was going bonkers. Al had come very close to just knocking the little blond wanker on his arse, and that kind of thing— brawls, scuffles, fights—got you noticed in all the wrong ways. Talking to yourself was bad, okay, but-

"But the dreams are pretty bad too," Al whispered, and this time he didn't catch himself.

The dreams of late had indeed been very bad. In these dreams he was in uniform, although the type varied. In one he was wearing a paper uniform, and he was standing in line with hundreds of other gaunt starving prisoners. The smell of burning was in the air, and he could hear the choppy roar of Muggle earthmoving equipment. Then Snape would come along the line, pointing out prisoners seemingly at random. These were led off to the crematoriums. Some of them kicked and struggled weakly, but for the most part they were too undernourished to struggle much.

Then Snape was in front of Al, and their eyes met for a long, paralysing moment. Then Snape levelled a long yellow finger at him.

"Take this one to the laboratory," he said in the dream. His lips curled back to reveal his missing teeth. "Take this half-blood boy."

In yet another dream he was wearing a Death Eater uniform. His buckled boots were polished to a mirror-like reflecting surface. The skull and snake insignia stood out clearly, glittering. But he was standing in the middle of the Godric's Hollow High Street. People were looking at him. Some of them laughed, others looked angry, shocked, or revolted.

Then an old Plymouth Fury rolled up. One with the tail fins and the acre of hood. The driver's side window rolled down and Snape was there, pointing at him, an ancient Snape who looked nearly mummified, his skin a yellowed scroll.

"I know you!" this dream Snape squalled, his voice as high as a hinge badly in need of oil. "I know you, murderer! Look, everyone! This is the Potions-Fiend of Lockwood! I denounce you, killer of infants! I denounce you, murderer! I denounce you!"

"It's all right," Al whispered, "it's all right, everything's okay, everything's under control."

The snogging couple looked at him. Al glared back, daring them to say anything. At last they looked away. Had the boy been smirking?

Al got back on his bike and pedalled to a nearby chemist's. He bought a bottle of ink eradicator and a bottle of blue ink. This done, he pulled into an alley a couple blocks down and doctored his report card:

Language Arts: E

Magical and Non-magical History: E

Basic Mathematics and Arithmancy: A

Potions: A

Transfiguration: O

Charms: O

Magical Defence: O

He was very careful to make sure the card had a uniform look.

Uniforms, right.

"Never mind," he whispered to himself. "That'll hold them. That'll hold them, all right."

# # #

Later that month, around two o'clock in the morning, Severus Snape awoke, gasping, tangled in his sheets. He woke into a terrifying darkness. He felt suffocated, nearly paralysed with fear. It felt like there was a heavy stone on his chest. Dimly, he wondered if he might be having a heart attack.

He thrashed out of the shreds of his dreams, clawing for the bedside lamp. He almost knocked it over, turning it on.

_I'm in my own room_, he thought, as the reassuring light chased away the winter shadows. _See, the same bed, the same brown drapes covering the same dusty windows, the same old books in the bookshelf, same grey rug. No heart attack. No jungle. No eyes._

But the last shreds of the dream still clung to him, like a stinking pelt, and his heart still raced.

He had known that the dream might come back. Sooner or later, if the boy kept on … The cursed boy. He thought the boy's letter of protection was just a bluff, and not a very good one at that; something he no doubt picked up from those old Muggle detective programs on the television. Probably just a bluff. What friend would he trust not to open such a momentous letter? No friend that was who. If he could only be sure—

His hands closed with an arthritic snap into loose fists.

Snape sat up farther in the bed and reached for the packet of cigarettes on the nightstand. He scratched a match alight on the bedpost and coughed out the first few puffs in a series of harsh spasms. The hands on the clock stood at 2:15. There would be no more sleep this night. Not unless he went downstairs and had a drink or two. Or three. And there had been far too much drinking of late. He was no longer a young man who could toss them off one after another like he had done with his old friends back in '79, back when the Dark Lord was everywhere and the scent of victory was in the air.

The boy … the cursed boy!

"Be honest," Snape said aloud. The sound of his voice in the silent room made him start a little. He was not in the habit of talking to himself, but neither was it the first time. He remembered doing it off and on in those last few weeks at Brecon, when things were coming down around their ears and the reports of defeat after defeat kept rolling in. It had been natural for him to talk to himself, because he was under stress. People under stress did strange things—cupped their testicles through the pockets of their pants, beat out fast unconscious rhythms on hard surfaces with their fingers, picked their noses. Old Lucius Malfoy had been a great nose picker, and Pettigrew, that whining, snivelling little bastard, had been in the habit of clicking his teeth together, like the rat he was. And he, Severus Snape, had talked to himself. But now—

"You are under stress again," he said, this time aware he was speaking out loud.

"Yes. You are under stress. Because of the boy. But be honest with yourself. It is too early in the morning to tell lies. You have not entirely regretted talking. At first you were terrified that the boy could not or would not keep his secret. He would have to tell a friend, who would tell another friend, and that friend would tell two. But if he has kept it this long, he will keep it longer. If I am taken away, he loses his … his talking book. Is that what I am to him? I think so."

He stopped there, but his thoughts went on. At first he had been lonely—no one would ever know how lonely. There were times in those early days when he seriously contemplated suicide. He made a bad hermit, in spite of his natural taciturn nature. The only voices he heard came from the radio. The only people who visited were on the other side of a dirty glass square. He was an old man afraid of death, but even more, he was an old man afraid of being alone.

His bladder sometimes tricked him. He would be on the way to the bathroom when a dark stain suddenly spread on his pants. In wet weather his joints would throb and then begin to cry out, and he longed with desperate intensity for some pain relief potion, but had to settle for regular aspirin. Sometimes he chewed a whole tin of the stuff in a single day.

His eyes were bad. He knocked things over, barked his shin, bumped his head. He lived in fear of breaking a bone and not being able to get to the phone, or of getting there and having some doctor grow suspicious over Mr Craven's lack of medical history and discovering his real past as a result.

The boy had eased some of those things. When the boy was here, he could call back the memories of those old dead days. His recollections were surprisingly clear, even down to remembering the weather conditions that had obtained on such and such a day, or what he might've been wearing. He remembered the experiments they had done—trying to give magic to those with mental retardation; thresholds of pain; uses for unicorn blood; the effects of different types of radiation. Dozens more. Hundreds more.

He supposed he talked as all old men talked, but he guessed he was luckier than most old men, who had disinterest or sometimes outright rudeness for an audience. His own audience was endlessly fascinated, paying more attention to the things he was teaching than any of his old students used to.

Were a few bad dreams too high a price to pay?

He crushed out the cigarette and lay back on the pillows staring at the ceiling for a moment, then swung his feet creakily out onto the floor. He and the boy were loathsome, he supposed, feeding off each other … eating each other. If his own belly was sometimes sour with the dark but rich food they partook of in his afternoon kitchen, what was the boy's like? Did he sleep well? Snape thought that he perhaps did not; lately the boy had a scary, hollow look around the eyes, and he seemed a little thinner than he had been when he first came into Snape's life.

Snape crossed over to the closet door and opened it. He brushed hangers aside, reached way into the shadows and brought out the sham uniform. It hung from his hand like the skin of a dead snake. He touched it. Touched it … and then stroked it.

After a long moment, he put the uniform on, not looking into the mirror until the thing was completely on and the sham fly zipped.

He looked at himself in the mirror, a shadowy figure in the dimness, and nodded.

He went back over to the bed, lay down and stared at the ceiling once more. Then he lit another cigarette, and when it was finished, he felt sleepy again. He reached to turn off the bed stand lamp, not believing it, that it could be this easy. But he was asleep five minutes later, and this time his sleep was dreamless.


	8. Chapter 8

8

February, 2031.

Harry was in bed with Lisa when the call came.

They had knocked off from work a couple hours early. No open cases for a change, not with the weather being what it was. A record cold snap had fallen over most of Britain, plunging temperatures into the negatives and dumping snow in the highlands and in Wales. Harry guessed it was too cold for criminals to cause any trouble.

They had taken a room at a hotel in north London, made love, and now Lisa was in the shower. They did not couple with the frenzied passion of their beginning days, but it was still sweet and wonderful, like an old familiar song you hear on a rainy night, from inside, where it's warm.

Harry lay on the bed with his hands laced behind his head, half asleep, feeling like all was right with the world. Normally he would be smoking a cigarette, but Lisa had gotten him off of those, refusing to kiss him when he "tasted like an ashtray."

Life was good. The whole extended family had come over for Christmas, creating an agreeable chaos. Molly was still alive, still trying to run everything even from her wheelchair (she had been put there as the result of a dark curse sent by Bellatrix Lestrange), and Arthur still goggled at the airplanes on the television. Both of them were in their eighties, but pretty much the same.

Teddy was enamoured with Victoire (they had been dancing around each other for the past fifteen years), James had been kind of sullen and withdrawn, Lily sketching everything and everyone as was her habit around the holidays. And Al, good old Al, had been everywhere, a delightful personification of boyhood, living the life Harry himself never could.

The water stopped as Harry smiled, remembering the cheerful holiday. Ginny had put on a huge spread, supervised by the old Weasley matriarch ("Little more pepper, dearie," and "I think that rice needs a bit more time on the stove, don't you?") The whole family gathered around the expanded table and Christmas music wafted quietly from the wireless. It had been a grand time.

The door to the bathroom opened, releasing a cloud of lavender-scented steam. Harry glanced over to see Lisa posed naked against the doorway, one hand over her head and the other on her hip. Her wet hair hung down to the lush rounded top of her buttocks. Her face was flushed from the shower, a little cat smile on her lips. Her breasts, still heavy, ripe and full, sat a little lower on her chest, her belly a little rounder and her hips a little wider than they were ten years ago, but she was still beautiful and sexy. Harry felt himself harden at the sight of her, a feat he wouldn't have thought possible after the hour they'd just put in earlier.

Lisa saw the sheet move and her smile widened. She glided in from the doorway, skin glistening like a mermaid's. "Got yourself a problem there, big boy?" she asked, licking her lips with her pink tongue.

"You bet I—"

And that was when the badge all DMLE personnel wore started to buzz loudly from the pile of Harry's clothes on the floor.

"Shit," Harry muttered, sitting up and getting off the bed, all sexiness gone. "What the hell happened now?"

Lisa quickly got dressed, putting her own professional face on. "Deal with it. I'll meet you at the office."

Harry nodded. Never missed a trick, that girl. Wouldn't do for them to arrive together.

Lisa dropped a quick kiss on his lips and was gone back into the bathroom. A second later, Harry heard the sharp crack of Apparition and she was gone. And then he took the call.

"This is Potter," he said into his badge/communications unit. An idea they picked up from the Muggle military, back in the last war.

"Ah, this is Susan, Harry. 'Fraid we have a problem here."

Harry frowned. The head of the DMLE was calling one of her prosecutors personally? Granted, they went back a ways but…

"What kind of problem, Susan?"

Susan Bones cleared her throat. "Ah, it's your son, Harry. I'm afraid he's been arrested on charges of assault and drunken disorderly. You'd better get down here. Fast."

# # #

Later that night, after Ginny's tears and James's angry recriminations and Al's stare of stunned disbelief, Harry was sitting alone in his study, nipping at a bottle of firewhisky. James was confined to his room over the weekend. Harry's first inclination had been to let him sit in jail, but Ginny had prevailed on him and the boy had been bailed out.

Turned out James had gone down to the Three Broomsticks after classes had let out. He had been drinking for a good while, before trying to do something to Rachel, one of the barmaids. She had told him no, turned to walk away. Then James had grabbed her and dragged her back and…

Harry had another fiery gulp straight from the bottle. Well, it was lucky James had been drunk, actually. Else it could've been a lot worse. The girl could've been seriously hurt instead of just roughed up a little. As it was, the barmaid had been able to free her wand and stun him before any real damage was done.

He snorted. Who was he kidding? The damage was already done. This was going to be played up for all it was worth in the paper. His stupid, stupid son. Harry felt sickened that the boy was trying to ride on his father's fame to toy with the affections of girls. It was likely he was going to be expelled from Hogwarts. And in his seventh year, too.

Sighing once more, Harry went upstairs to have a chat with James. It was long overdue, anyhow.

# #

After dinner, Potter brought out a cognac that Snape privately thought dreadful. Nevertheless, he praised it extravagantly. Potter's wife, the Weasley girl all grown up, served the boy a glass of chocolate milk. The other two had left, the girl looking detached and the other boy looking just angry. The boy had told him that his brother had been arrested the previous week and was now confined to the house for the foreseeable future.

The boy had been unusually quiet throughout the meal. Uneasy? Yes. For some reason the boy seemed very uneasy.

Snape had charmed the Potters from the first moment he stepped in through the doorway. The boy had performed a glamour charm on him—just a little one—and he was reasonably sure neither of them recognised their old potions teacher. He had told his parents that old Mr Craven's vision was much worse than it actually was, which explained all the reading he had been doing for the poor man. Snape had been very careful about that, and he thought there had been no slips.

He was dressed in his best suit, and although the evening was damp his arthritis had only twinged a little.

All in all, it had been a very pleasant evening, dreadful cognac aside. He had not been out to dinner for a very long time.

During the meal they had discussed the state of automotive manufacturing in Great Britain, the merger of the magical and non-magical worlds, and the plans for the sports authorities to try and merge the Quidditch and football leagues into one entity. Snape was pleasantly surprised to find out that Potter was not as much of a dunderhead as he used to be.

Ginny Potter had asked him how he came to live in Greaves, and Snape, adopting the proper expression of myopic sorrow, had told the story of his fictitious wife. Ginny had been meltingly sympathetic, sniffing once or twice.

Now, over the absurd cognac, Potter asked: "If this is too personal, Mr Craven, don't feel you have to answer, but I wonder what you thought of the last war?"

The boy stiffened ever so slightly.

Snape smiled and felt for his cigarettes. He could see them perfectly well, but it was important not to make the tiniest slip. Ginny put them in his hand.

"Thank you, dear lady. The meal was superb. You are a fine cook. My wife never did better."

Ginny thanked him and blushed. Al gave her an irritated look she didn't see.

"Not personal at all," Snape said, puffing his cigarette. "I only saw it from the side-lines, you understand, but I understand both viewpoints. It seemed to me that both sides were afraid, but just expressed their fear differently."

"Perhaps," Potter said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I, too, grew up in the non-magical world and believe you're right about this one being afraid. When wizards finally did come out, the reaction wasn't at all what anyone thought it would be."

"Yes. Many entrepreneurs started trying to make money off the discovery," Snape said, smiling. "Always looking to make a quick buck, as the yanks say."

"I was surprised, myself," Ginny spoke up. "I came from a purely wizarding family and many of the ghost stories told to us as kids were about Muggle witch hunts, like the guy who wrote the Malleus Maleficarum. More cognac, Mr Craven?"

Snape smiled at her. "No thank you, dear lady. My wife had a saying from her mother: One must not overdue the sublime."

Al's small, troubled frowned deepened a bit.

Potter suddenly reached across the table and clapped the boy on the shoulder. Al jumped. "You're awfully quiet tonight, son. Feeling all right?"

Al offered a strange smile that seemed divided between his father and Snape. "Doing okay. I've heard most of these stories before, remember."

"Al!" Ginny admonished. "That's hardly—"

"The boy is just being honest," Snape said. "A privilege of boys which men often must give up. Yes, Mr Potter?"

Potter laughed and nodded.

"Perhaps I could get Alvin to walk back with me to my house. I'm sure he has his studies."

"Al is usually pretty close to tops in his class," Ginny said absently, looking at Al in a puzzled sort of way (perhaps she had seen the slightly troubled look.) "All O's and E's usually. They took a bit of a dip in the last quarter, but he's promised to bring his marks back up to snuff in his March report. Right, Al old pal?"

Al offered the peculiar smile again and nodded.

"No need for you to walk," Potter said. "I'd be happy to drive you. Or," and here he offered Snape a winning smile, "maybe you'd like to experience magical travel?"

"I walk for the air and the exercise. Good things for an old man to have. Unless Al prefers not to?"

"No, I'd like a walk," Al said, and his parents beamed.

The Potter house was on the very outskirts of Godric's Hollow, making the walk to the neighbouring town of Greaves only about a mile. They were just about to the turnoff onto Snape's street when Snape broke the silence. It was drizzling lightly, and he held his umbrella over both of them. Yet his arthritis remained almost silent, dozing. It was amazing.

"You are like my arthritis."

Al started and looked up. "Huh?"

"Neither of you have had much to say tonight. What's got your tongue, boy? Cat or cormorant?"

Al looked back down at the ground and shrugged. "I dunno."

"Perhaps I can guess," Snape said, with a trace of malice. "You were afraid I might slip, let the cat out of the bag, as the saying goes. Yet you were determined to go through with the dinner because you had had run out of excuses to put your parents off. Now you are disconcerted because everything went well. Do I have the right of it, boy?"

"Who cares?" Al said, and shrugged again, looking sullen.

"Why shouldn't it go well?" Snape demanded. "I was dissembling long before you were born—even before your father was born, eh? You keep a secret well enough, I will give you that. I will give you that most graciously. But did you see me tonight? I charmed them. Charmed them!"

Al suddenly burst out: "You didn't have to do that!"

Snape stopped in a pool of darkness between street lamps. "Not do it? Not? I thought that was what you wanted, boy. Certainly they will not make any objections should you come over and read to me."

"You're sure taking a lot for granted!" Al said hotly. "Maybe I got all I want from you. Do you think there's anything making me come over to your house and watch you slop up booze like those filthy old tramps down in the park or the train yard? Is that really what you think?" His voice had risen, taking on a thin, wavering, hysterical note. "Is it? Because there's nobody making me. If I want to come, I will, and if I don't, I won't—"

"Keep your voice down, boy. Somebody will hear."

"Who cares?" Al repeated, but he started walking again. This time he deliberately moved beyond the umbrella's span.

"No, no one forces you to come," Snape said. And then he took a calculated shot in the dark: "In fact, you may stay away if you wish. Believe me, boy, I have no problem drinking alone. None at all."

Al gave him a scornful look, the mist shining in his short-cropped hair like sweat. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

Snape only gave him a bland smile.

They had reached the concrete walk leading to Snape's front porch. Snape fumbled in his pocket for his latchkey, the arthritis flaring a dim red in the dips of his fingers before retreating back down to a threatening doze. Now he knew what it was waiting for. It was waiting for him to be alone.

"I'll tell you something," Al said. Now he sounded oddly breathless. "If my parents ever knew who you were … I bet my dad would probably kill you."

Snape looked at Al closely in the misty dark. The boy's face was turned up to his, looking defiant, but the skin was pallid, the sockets under the eyes hollowed—the skin tones of one who has brooded in the silence while the rest of the house is asleep.

"Maybe so," Snape allowed. "But what would they do to you, boy, if it came out that you had known about me for eight months … and did nothing?"

Al stared at him without replying.

"Come and see me if you please and stay away if you don't," Snape said, sounding indifferent as he mounted his porch steps. "Good night, boy." He went inside, leaving Al staring after him, mouth slightly ajar.

The next morning at breakfast, Ginny said: "Your dad liked Mr Craven a lot, Al. He said he reminded him of the grandfather he never had."

Al muttered something unintelligible around his toast. Ginny looked at Al, worried. He was looking a little pale, like he wasn't sleeping too well. And his grades had taken that inexplicable dip. Al never got A's. She wondered if the recent turmoil in their family over his older brother's arrest had affected him badly.

"You feeling okay these days, Al?"

Al looked at her blankly for a moment, and then his radiant smile broke across his face, charming her, comforting her. There was a dab of orange marmalade on his chin.

"Yeah, doing just fine. Five by."

"Al old pal," she said.

"Minny Ginny," he replied, and they laughed together in the kitchen.


	9. Chapter 9

9

March, 2031.

It was Ron Weasley who turned James Potter, Jr in for the second time.

James had been readmitted in late February, on a probationary basis. And on the next Hogsmeade weekend, He and a gang of other seventh years had gotten hold of some Marijuana and smoked it behind the Hog's Head, which was now under Seamus Finnigan's ownership. They then proceeded to return to school and ambush a little Hufflepuff fourth year. they applied a Levitation Charm to the boy and hoisted him high over the lake and let the charm drop. The boy went into free fall, screaming, until one of the boy's recast the charm before he hit the water. The game was to see how long he could fall before the charm was cast and not get wet.

By the time Ron Weasley caught them, the little fourth year was a sobbing, gibbering wreck. He had wet his pants and was almost incoherent with fear. James and his friends thought it was a real hoot.

The little gang of seventh years hadn't been arrested this time, but expelled firmly, with no possibility of readmission.

Harry Potter had not been in bed with his lover on this occasion. The first he heard about it was when he came home from a town called Thetford, where he was overseeing a misuse of magic case. Technically he didn't have to be there, but things were tense at home, with James's troubles and Lily's continued withdrawal, and he needed a break.

Lily … Now that was a puzzling situation. What was up with dear, sweet Lily?

As the past three months had gone by, she had become increasingly withdrawn, only coming out of her room for meals and school, and only putting in the barest minimum of effort there. When pressed, she could only shrug helplessly and look at her questioner with those big eyes of hers. Harry had wanted to be angry, but he just couldn't manage it.

When he had arrived home from Thetford, James had been there, and Ginny was walking back and forth, red with rage, screaming. James had screamed right back at her, and called her a stupid fucking bitch. And for the first and only time, Ginny's hand had reached out and slapped him across the face. James glared at her, tensed, and for a moment, Harry had thought the boy was going to make this evening's blackness total by striking his mother. Instead, James had stared at her shocked face, and before any of them could react, he screamed: "Fuck you! Fuck both of you! I don't fucking need any of you!" and had had whirled and bolted out of the house. A half second later, there was the thunderous crack of an angry Apparition, and he was gone.

"Oh God, I didn't mean to do that," Ginny had wailed, falling against him and sobbing, her anger gone. "What's happening to our family, Harry? What the fuck is happening!"

And Harry, completely at sea, could only shake his head and stroke his wife's back, very near tears himself. _At least we have Al_, both of them had thought, but did not say. _We did something right, at least._ _That boy is one in a million._

James finally came stumbling in around three in the morning, stinking of firewhisky and half unconscious. He stamped up the stairs to his room, ignoring his anxious parents huddled in the living room, and fell into bed still clothed. Later, Harry went up and undressed him down to his boxers, and then stood looking down at him. Surely this wasn't his son. This hard drinking, bullying, womanizing boy … surely not. A stranger. A stranger had moved into his son's body. Yes—that was the explanation. Had to be.

And then he had heard the sound of Lily Luna crying softly in the next room.

When he went in there, Lily was curled up in a tiny ball in the middle of her bed, clutching her old teddy bear and sucking her thumb. The stress in her family had regressed her about six years. She had always been more sensitive than any of them. And when she had requested a nightlight, Harry had burst into tears and magicked a ball of light that changed colours into the air, the same way he had done for her when she was just a baby. The sight had made her giggle just as it had always done, and Harry left it there and went to his own bedroom, peering into Al's half open door on the way. The boy was sound asleep, curled up on his side, snoring lightly— nothing wrong in there.

When Harry had gone into the bedroom he shared with his wife, he found Ginny had taken a Dreamless Sleep potion and was passed out in her bed, mouth open. He was sorely tempted to do the same, but didn't. Someone had to stay awake to … to keep watch. Yes, that was it. To keep watch on the family that was rapidly disintegrating for no discernible reason at all. So he sat in the easy chair by the window, staring out at the early spring sky, wishing bitterly for a cigarette and unaware that, only a mile and a half away, an old man was sitting by the window equally wakeful, smoking one.

The next morning, there was a tense silence around the breakfast table, which had always been a place of laughter before. James said nothing to anyone; instead he stared sullenly down at his plate, his face pale and sick looking, his eyes angry. Al quickly finished his own French toast and got the hell out, heading for school. And Lily was not there; she was still in bed.

Harry was very worried about his daughter. She was still sucking her thumb and clutching her Teddy bear. And as he looked at his oldest son he felt a dim frustrated anger rise up in him, a desire to reach across and grab the boy by the throat and shake him, shake him until some sense finally percolated into the kid's stupid brain. Where had this stranger come from? he asked himself again, staring at the boy's bent head. Where?

In the end he had to go to work. He called up Molly on the Floo to come sit with Lily, a task which she was willing to do. So he went and got her, wheelchair and all, and when the old woman saw the state of the little girl she wept. And Harry told her the whole story and wept with her. She patted him on the back and told him she and Arthur would do whatever they could, and he had wept harder.

So he had left Lily in Molly's tender care, the two of them curled up in the lounge watching cartoons and gone to work, and when he returned home Ginny was gone.

# # #

"Kitty-kitty," Snape called. "Heeere, kitty-kitty. Puss-puss? Puss-puss?"

He was sitting on his back stoop, a little plastic bowl by his foot. The bowl was filled with milk. It was two-thirty in the afternoon; the day was cool and clear. There was the faint smell of wood smoke drifting on the breeze from the east, a smell that jagged oddly against the calendar; it was more autumnal than vernal.

If the boy was coming, he would be here in about an hour. Hogwarts had changed from his days as both student and teacher. Classes started earlier and ended later to accommodate the increased student body.

The boy didn't always come now, though. Instead of five days a week, he sometimes only came two or three times. An intuition had grown in him little by little, and his intuition told him the boy was having problems of his own, quite apart from his sister's withdrawal into fantasyland and his brothers legal troubles. The boy had told him his sister now thought she was about four, and had to be supervised almost constantly now. He had smiled a peculiar little smile when telling Snape this.

"Kitty-kitty," Snape coaxed softly. The cat was sitting in a snarled growth of weeds at the far end of Snape's back garden, near the fence that led into a patch of waste land. It was a tom, and looked every bit as ragged as the weeds it was sitting in. Whenever Snape spoke, it's chewed and scabbed ears cocked forward, and its eyes never left the bowl filled with milk.

Perhaps, Snape thought, the boy was having troubles with his studies, or bad dreams. Or both. The last thought caused him to smile—a thin curve of the lips, anyway.

"Kitty-kitty," he called softly. The cat's ears cocked forward again. It didn't move, not yet, but it continued to study the milk.

Snape had certainly had his own problems to deal with. For the last three weeks he had worn the Death Eater uniform to bed, like grotesque pyjamas. This had alleviated the insomnia and the bad dreams, and at first his sleep had been as sound as a coal miner's. Then the dreams had returned all at once and worse than ever before, dreams of running as well as the dreams of the eyes … dreams of Running through a wet, cloying jungle where fronds struck at his face, leaving trickles of sap … or blood. Looking around, he saw the eyes, luminous in the darkness, ready to pounce.

Then he would break through into a clearing, and on the other side at the top of a steep rise would be the stark simple structures of Brecon, which was actually an old military post converted for use, in the Brecon mountain range. There would be the barbed wire fence charged with wards that would incinerate those without a Dark Mark. And in the middle would be the great smokestacks, below which the furnaces glowed hot, like the red eyes of demons in the night, stoked and ready to go at a moment's notice.

He would look over his shoulder in the dream, and there they were at last, the shambling restless dead, the Muggles and Muggleborns and otherwise deformed, their expressions animated with hate, their hands formed into claws to tear at him. But the overall expression on their wasted faces was desperation.

Desperation? Yes. Because they knew that once he was beyond the fence, he was the one in charge. He was the one who got to decide who lived, who died, who was sent to the great glowing furnaces and who was carried off to the laboratories. But down here, in these wet and swampy lowlands where the plants exuded blood instead of sap, he was a wild animal, prey.

He would start to run up the hill with all the slowness of nightmare, but before he could get even a quarter of the way up, he would feel their skeletal hands on him, smell their decayed breath, hear their birdlike cries of hateful triumph as they tore him down to do unspeakable things to him—

"Kitty-kitty," Snape called. "Nice milk."

The cat came at last. It trotted halfway across the yard, then its nerves failed and it sat again, but lightly, its tail twitching with worry. It didn't trust him, no it didn't. But Snape knew it would come eventually. It could smell the milk.

At Brecon there had never been a contraband problem. Many of the prisoners had tried cloaking their valuables with feeble magic wards before the snatchers came for them, or had used the even more crude method of trying to jam the valuables up their arses in small bags. Very often these valuables turned out to be nothing valuable at all—locks of hair, fake jewellery, even illegal drugs. The Dark Lord had not cared at all about anything the Mudbloods brought with them, but the cavity searches and confiscations of property were necessary for demoralization and the establishment of dominance.

In the room used for prisoner interrogations, Snape had used a potion of his own invention. He called it the Draught of Enticement, but unlike its name might suggest, it was not a love potion. Not at all. Instead, it smelled and looked like whatever the person sniffing and seeing it wanted it to. Completely harmless when injected, its only purpose was to provide an illusion.

There had been a homey kitchen table covered with a red checked cloth, much like the one in his own kitchen. And bubbling away in the corner, a big cauldron of the potion, smelling like the most beguiling thing the interviewee could imagine. Usually it was food. Lamb stew, steak, bacon, apple pie.

Snape would stand by this cauldron, occasionally giving it a stir. Gently, he would ask them: Who. Who is hiding pills? Who is hiding tobacco? Who stole Gibbon's wand and tried the escape attempt from Zone Four? Who?

The enticing substance in the softly simmering cauldron was never specifically promised, but the aromas always loosened their tongues. Of course, a Cruciatus Curse or a Bludgeoning Curse to their filthy crotches would've also worked, but the potion was … was elegant. Yes indeed. Certainly more elegant than that toad Umbridge's favourite method of interrogation. The bitch was even more twisted and deranged than Bellatrix and her family.

Umbridge liked to hang the prisoners from shackles in the ceiling, tie their ankles to stretcher bars and, when they were fully exposed, she would jam a long stick into their urethras, coated with a slow burning substance. Then she would light the far end of it and tell them to spill everything they knew.

Snape liked his own solution a lot better. It did not leave a mess to clean up.

"Kitty-kitty," Snape called again. The cat rose, then, perhaps remembering a match that had burned its whiskers or some long-ago kick, it settled back on its haunches again. But soon it would move.

He had found a way of propitiating his nightmare. It was like wearing the Death Eater uniform, only raised to a greater power. He supposed he had the boy to thank for this as well, for making him realise the way to come to terms with the past's terrors was not through rejection, but through contemplation, and something like a friend's embrace. Before the boy's arrival last summer, he had not had any bad dreams for a long time, it was true. He believed now, though, that he had come to terms with his past. He had been forced to give up a part of himself, thanks to the boy. Now he was reclaiming it.

"Kitty-kitty," Snape coaxed, and now a large smile broke across his face. It was a kindly smile, a gentle smile, the smile of an old man who has come through the harsh and cruel courses of life intact and with at least some wisdom gained along the way.

The cat came at last. It trotted up the splintery porch steps, giving Snape one last distrustful look as it bent its head to the bowl of milk. _You're still an evil human_, the look said.

"Nice milk," Snape said as he pulled on the Playtex gloves that had lain in his lap the whole while. "Nice milk for a nice kitty."

He had bought the gloves in the supermarket. They had cuffs and were so flexible you could pick up a ten pence piece while wearing them. He had stood in the express lane, and older women had eyed him with speculative, even approving glances.

He stroked the cat's back with one rubber finger while it drank the milk and talked to it soothingly. Its back began to arch with the rhythm of his strokes.

Just before the milk was all gone, he seized the cat. It came electrically alive in his hands, thrashing back and forth like an eel. Snape was sure that if it got its teeth or claws into him, it would come off the winner. It was an old campaigner. _It takes one to know one,_ he thought, grinning a hard grin.

The cat held away from his body at a prudent distance, Snape kicked open the back door, which he had left ajar, and advanced into the kitchen. The cat continued to flail. Its feral, triangular head lashed out like a snake. Its teeth clamped onto one rubber thumb, ripping at it.

"Nasty kitty," Snape said, sounding is if he were scolding a child in his potions class.

The oven door was open. Snape threw the cat in. Its claws made a thick, ripping sound, like tape coming off a cardboard box, as they came loose from the rubber. Snape banged the oven door shut with his knee, causing his arthritis to twinge. The grin still remained on his face, however. He propped himself against the stove for a moment, head hanging, panting a little. It was a gas stove, which he rarely used for nothing fancier than frozen dinners or killing stray cats.

Faintly, rising up through the burners, he could still hear the cat's claws clicking on metal as it yowled to get out.

Snape turned the oven dial to 260 degrees Celsius (500 degrees Fahrenheit.) There was a loud _pop!_ as the pilot-light ignited two rows of hissing gas. The cat stopped yowling and began to scream. It sounded … yes. It sounded almost like a young boy. A young boy in excruciating agony. This thought made Snape grin even wider. His heart raced. Inside the oven, the cat screamed and whirled madly. Soon a hot, furry, roasting stench began to rise into the kitchen. And two minutes later, there was silence.

Snape scraped the roasted cat carcass out of the oven half an hour later, putting it in a flour sack and burying it in the cellar, the floor of which had never been cemented over. He sprayed the kitchen with air freshener and opened the windows. The kitchen now reeked of artificial vanilla scent. Then he sat in his rocker and waited to see if the boy would turn up. He smiled and smiled.

An hour and two drinks later the boy did come, carrying his school books under one arm. He was wearing his Hogwarts uniform, minus the robes, and a Manchester United cap.

"Oi, what's that smell," he said, wrinkling his nose. "It's awful."

"I'm afraid I burned my supper," Snape replied from where he was rocking placidly. "I had to throw it out."

A week later the boy turned up earlier than usual, an hour before school normally let out. Snape was sipping Highland Black whisky from a chipped coffee mug with a picture of a Tasmanian devil on it. He had his rocker out in the kitchen now, and he was just drinking and rocking, rocking and drinking, his slippers thumping peacefully on the old linoleum. He was good and high. There had been no bad dreams at all since the cat with the chewed ears, but last night they had come back. Last night's had been particularly bad, there was no denying it. He had gotten almost halfway up the hill when they dragged him down and started to do horrible things to him, before he was able to come awake. After his thrashing return to consciousness, though, he was confident. He could end the dreams whenever he wished. And if a cat wasn't enough this time, there was always the dog pound. Yes indeed. Always the pound.

Al came abruptly into the kitchen, his face pale and strained. He had lost weight, Snape thought, and he was pretty sure his family troubles were not solely responsible.

"You're going to help me," Al said with sudden defiance.

"Really?" Snape asked, keeping his voice mild, even though a sudden knot of apprehension had risen in him. He did not let his expression change as Al slammed his books down on the table with a sudden, vicious overhand stroke. One of them skidded across the tablecloth and landed in a tent on the floor.

"Oh yes! You're fucking right! Because this is your fault! All your fault!" His voice was shrill, bordering on hysterical. Hectic roses bloomed in his cheeks. "But you're going to help me get out of it, because I've got the goods on you! I've got you right where I want you!"

"I'll do whatever I can," Snape said, keeping his voice quiet in contrast to the boy's near-hysterics. He saw that he had folded his hands in front of him—just as he had once done. He leaned forward until his chin was over his folded hands—as he had once done. His expression was calm, amiable and inquiring; he let none of his growing apprehension show. "Tell me what the trouble is."

"This is the sodding trouble," Al hissed, and threw a folder at Snape. It bounced off his chest and fell into his lap. A surprising surge of anger rose in him, and Snape repressed with some difficulty the urge to stand up and backhand the boy smartly. Instead, he kept his expression mild and opened the folder. It was the boy's quarterly report card, something they had apparently started sometime after the war. A handwritten note fell out of the folder. Snape put it aside for later examination, and turned his attention to the boy's grades.

"You seem to have fallen a bit on the rocks, my boy," he said, not without some satisfaction. Every grade but History and Charms was a T.

"It isn't my fault," Al hissed with venom. "It's your fault. All those stories. I have nightmares about them, do you know that? I sit down, open my books and start thinking about whatever you told me that day, and the next thing I know, my mother is telling me its bedtime. Well, that isn't my fault! It isn't! You hear me?"

"I hear you very well," Snape said, and reached for the note that had been tucked into the boy's card.

_Dear Mr and Mrs Potter,_

_This note is to suggest that we have a group conference concerning Alvin's second and third quarter grades. In light of Alvin's previous good work at this institution, it is our belief that these grades are symptomatic of a greater problem which maybe affecting his academic performance in a deleterious way. Such problems can usually be solved through a frank and open discussion wherein an agreeable solution to all involved may be reached. I should point out that, should Alvin fail to pass the third and fourth quarter marking period it could mean attendance during the summer session, which could lead to scheduling conflicts further down the line. I, or another member of the counselling staff, will be willing to meet you at a time of your choosing; although, as I'm sure you know, in a case such as this, earlier is usually better._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Howard Kramer_

"Who is this Howard Kramer?" Snape asked folding the note and tucking it back into the card. Part of him marvelled at this new love of jargon that had not been so present when he was the boy's age—such a rambling missive to tell the parents their son was flunking out! He refolded his hands and kept the mild expression on his face. The premonition of disaster was still present, but he refused to give in to it. A year ago he might have; a year ago he was ready for disaster. Now he wasn't, but the cursed boy had brought it upon him anyway. "Is he the new headmaster?"

"Duckie Howie?" Al asked, sounding scornful. "Nah. He's a guidance counsellor."

"What is a guidance counsellor?"

"They shook up the whole structure of the school after the war," Al said, still pacing. ""They changed up the house system to a lottery or inheritable selection. So if one of your parents was in a house, you could end up there too. They hired a bunch of people to monitor the different years, two for each year. Those are the guidance counsellors. And Duckie Howie oversees them all."

"I see," Snape said, although he privately thought the whole system unworkable. Still, they had to stay on track.

"Never mind that," Al said, throwing a quick, sharp glance at Snape and continuing to pace around the kitchen. "I'm not going to let any of this shite go down. You hear me? I'm not! I'm not going to any summer school. My parents planned on taking us to Spain this summer, and I'm going with them." He pointed at the report card on the table. "Do you know what my dad will do when he sees that?"

Snape shook his head.

"He'll get it all out of me. Everything. He'll know it was you. I could maybe blame the problems with James and Lily, but really, you're the only thing different in my life. And then … I don't know. They'll watch me. Make me see a doctor or a healer— something. But I'm not going to go to no doctor, or summer school."

"Or to a Ministry holding cell," Snape said. He spoke very quietly.

Al stopped pacing and looked at Snape. His forehead and cheeks, already pale, went whiter still. He had to try two times before he could speak. "What? What did you just say?" he whispered.

"My dear boy," Snape said, assuming an air of great patience and still rocking, "for the last five minutes I have listened to you snivel and whine, and what all your whining and snivelling comes down to is this. You are in trouble. You might get found out. You might find yourself in rather trying circumstances." Seeing that he had the boy's full attention—at last—Snape had another draught from his cup.

"My boy," he continued, "this is a very dangerous attitude for you to have. Much more dangerous for me. The potential harm is in my case much greater. You worry about your school card. Pah. This for your school card."

He flipped it with a contemptuous motion of one yellow finger off the table onto the floor.

"I am worried about my life!"

Al continued to stare at him with that wide-eyed, slightly crazed stare, and gave no reply.

"The MBO will not scruple over the fact that I am seventy years old. The death penalty is still in favour with them, especially when the man in their sights is associated with the camps."

"I wish they would hang you," Al muttered, curling his hands into white-knuckled fists and staring down at them. "I was crazy to get mixed up with you in the first place."

"No doubt," Snape said, and now his lips curved into that thin approximation of a smile. "But you are mixed up with me. We must live in the present, not in the past of 'I-should-have-nevers.' Our fate is now entwined. If you, as the saying goes, blow the horn on me, I will not hesitate to blow the horn on you. Twenty thousand died at Brecon. To the world I am a monster, even a butcher, as the scandal sheets would call me. You are an accessory to all that, my boy. You have criminal knowledge of a known war criminal and failed to report him. If I am caught and when all those reporters—both magical and non—, shove their cameras and microphones and dicto-quills in my face, it will be your name I repeat over and over again. 'Alvin Potter … yes, that is his name … How long? Almost a year … He wanted to know everything, all the messy parts.' And what will that do to your precious father and his oh so gilded reputation, hmm?"

Al's breath had stopped. His skin appeared transparent. Snape smiled at him. He sipped whisky.

"I think they will lock you up in jail. They might call it something fancy like a juvenile detention facility—" his lip curled in his trademark sneer "—but it will be a jail with bars on the windows. And your father and his fame will not get you out of it."

Al wet his lips. "I'd tell them I just found out. They'd believe me, not you. You would say anything to save your skin."

Snape's thin smile lingered. "I thought you said your exalted father would get it all out of you."

"Maybe not this time," Al said, speaking in the slow tones of one for whom realisation and verbalisation come simultaneously. "Maybe not. This isn't something like breaking a window with a rock or sneaking a bottle of Firewhisky."

Snape winced inwardly. He suspected the boy's judgement was correct. With so much at stake, and when faced with such an unpleasant truth, what parent would not want to be convinced? And there was Potter, who, by all reports, tended to see the good in everyone. Granted, he hadn't kept up with the man for nigh on thirty years—but in his experience people rarely change to a great degree over a lifetime.

"Perhaps," Snape said. "But how will you explain all those books you were supposedly reading to me because poor Mr Craven was half blind? My eyes are not what they used to be, but I can still read fine print with my spectacles and I can prove it.

"I'd say you fooled me. For … for friendship. Because you were lonely."

That, Snape thought, was almost believable, and closer to the truth than the boy knew. And in the beginning he might have been able to pull it off. Now, however, he was ragged and falling apart at the seams, like a coat which was reaching the last days of its useful life. If a child shot off his air rifle across the street, the boy would jump and scream like a girl.

"Your report card will also support my side of it. It was not _Finnigan's Wake_ that caused your grades to fall, was it?"

"Shut up, why don't you? Just shut up about it."

"No. I will not shut up about it." Snape lit a cigarette, scratching the match alight on the oven door. "Not until I make you realise the truth. We are in this together, boy, sink or swim." He looked at Al through the raftering smoke, his old face reptilian. "I will drag you down, boy. If anything comes out, everything will come out. That is my promise to you."

Al stared at him, full of teenage sullenness, and said nothing.

"Now," Snape said, with the air of a man who has gotten an necessary but unpleasant piece of business out of the way, "the question is, what do we do about this situation? Have you any ideas?"

"This will fix the card," Al said, removing a fresh bottle of ink eradicator from his coat pocket. "About that god damn letter, I don't know."

Snape looked at the ink eradicator approvingly. He had falsified a few reports in his time … and of course, when he was a teacher himself, he had diligently checked all his own students' report cards for such tampering. But of course, class sizes had been a lot smaller back then. Nowadays, with so many students, there just wasn't time for such careful checking. But during the war, he had had to forge a few reports and modify a few potion ingredient invoices, when worsening conditions forced him to cancel certain brewing projects because the ingredients went bad. This forging ability certainly came in handy after the war.

"Good," he said, tipping a fresh shot of whisky into his cup and rocking. "As for this other matter…" Snape watched Al pull his chair up to the table. He had picked up the report card without a word, and bent over it studiously. Like any boy who was bound and determined to do the best job he can, be it planting corn, building a model airplane, or forging grades on his report card. Snape's outward calm had had an effect on him, and his hand was steady as he worked.

Snape watched the nape of the boy's neck, pale with the lack of sunlight in the winter, cleanly exposed between his hairline and the round collar of his t-shirt. The butcher knives were just an arm's length away, in the top drawer beneath the kitchen unit. One quick thrust—he knew where to put it—and the boy would be silenced forever.

He gave a regretful sigh, unnoticed by the boy. Too many questions would be asked if the boy disappeared. Some directed at him. Even if there was no protection letter with a friend, close scrutiny was not something he could afford. Too bad.

"This man Kramer. Does he know your parents sociably?" Snape asked, tapping the letter.

"Him?" Al edged the word with slight contempt. "My parents don't go anywhere that he could even get in."

"Has he ever seen them in his professional capacity? Had conferences with them before?"

"No. I've always been close to the top in my classes. Least till now."

"So what does he know about them that isn't publicly known? Oh he no doubt knows everything there is to know about you, all the way from your fights in the kindergarten play yard. But what does he know about your parents?"

"Nothing but the stuff they have to fill out on the registration forms. All the old records from when they went to school were destroyed in the war, I heard, so even that isn't much use."

"Good. Now, do you happen to know of a relative on your mother's side who is, shall we say, reclusive? One who doesn't appear at family gatherings much but keeps to himself? Every family usually has one."

"Well," Al said, having finished doctoring the report card, "there's my great uncle Adrian. My grandmother's brother. Lives way out near Galway, on a farm. I haven't seen him since I was eight or so. Mum says Gran told her that Uncle Adrian got tired of the wizarding world and moved out there. Why?"

"Simple," Snape said, tossing back the last of the whisky in his cup. "With the recent troubles in your home, things are going to hell in a handcart, as the saying goes. You are worried and upset."

Al only looked at him, frowning.

"You would be very worried about them all," Snape repeated. "The psychology books and television shows, they make this all very clear, yes? Very bad when there are troubles in the home. You lose your appetite. You sleep poorly. Saddest of all your school work would suffer."

Understanding dawned in the boy's bloodshot eyes—understanding and something like dumb gratitude. Snape nodded, satisfied and pleased.

"Yes. Very sad when a heretofore solid family totters on the crumbly edge of destruction," Snape said grandly, tipping the last of the bottle of Highland Black into his glass and quaffing a deep draught. "There is bitterness and acrimony. Fights and arguments and lies. And most of all, pain. They are in such pain, my boy, that they are swallowed up by it and have little time for the problems of their youngest son, hmmm? Perhaps at some point in the future they will take an interest in him once more, but all they can do right now is to send kindly Uncle Adrian to see Mr Kramer."

Al's eyes had been steadily brightening until they were almost feverish. "Yeah. Might work, might—" he broke off suddenly, dejected again. "No, no it won't. You don't look like me, not even a little bit."

"Pah! Since when do great uncles look like their grandnephews?" Snape rose and crossed the kitchen (a bit jerkily), and retrieved a fresh bottle of highland black from the shelf over the cellar stairs. He closed the door, spun off the cap and poured liberally. "For a reasonably smart boy, you are a dunderhead. I got white hair. Do you have white hair?"

He crossed over to the table, reached out with surprising quickness and snatched a fistful of Al's black hair, pulling briskly.

"Knock it off," Al snapped, but he smiled a little.

"Besides," Snape said, resettling in his rocker, "you have black hair and green eyes. Before my hair went white, it was black. Any other differences we can put down to your father's influence. Also, not all the Prewetts had red hair. And, it is a truism, boy, that people rarely look for things wrong, unless they're trained to do so. A school guidance counsellor is not. I was deceiving the Dark Lord and various law enforcement agencies long before this dunderhead was born. If I can't pull the wool over the eyes of one pretend schoolteacher, I will wrap my winding shroud around me and climb into my grave."

"Maybe," Al said slowly, but Snape could see that the boy had already accepted it. His eyes were nearly luminous with relief. "Dad taught all us kids the portkey spell, in case we needed to escape or something … so I could make you one to Hogwarts. Yeah, it might work, maybe…"

"No surely!" Snape cried.

He began to cackle with laughter, rocking back and forth. Al looked at him, puzzled and a little nervous, but then joined him. Together in Snape's kitchen they laughed and laughed, Snape by the window where the cool spring breeze was wafting in, and Al tipped back on two legs of his chair against the oven door, the white enamel of which was marred by the streaks made by Snape's matches when he struck them alight.

# # #

Howard "Duckie" Kramer got his nickname, Al explained, because the man's chin was tiny, and his nose spread out on his face. This forced his lips into a bill like shape when he was at rest. He had been known as Kissy-kissy in college, and he would've been most humiliated to know that even that shameful secret had leaked out to the student body he was responsible for. He was also known as the Quackman, as in "watch out, the Quack Man cometh."

He had majored in educational psychology at St Andrews University and he privately considered himself the best guidance counsellor he'd ever met. He could get right into it with them. He could laugh with them and watch sympathetically if they had to do some shouting and kick out the jams. He could get into their hang-ups because he understood what a downer it could be when you were fifteen and somebody was doing a number on your head and you couldn't get a grip.

Thing was, Howard sometimes had a hard time remembering what it was like to be fifteen himself. He supposed it was the ultimate price he had to pay for growing up in the brave world of the nineties. That and going into the new millennium nicknamed Kissy-kissy.

Now, he watched Alvin Potter's uncle advance into the office and close the heavy wooden door with its frosted glass panel firmly behind him. He rose from behind his desk and offered a chair.

_One fine-looking fellow_, Howard thought as the old guy settled in it. His white hair was carefully brushed back; his crisp Muggle suit starched; his dove-grey tie impeccably knotted. He was holding a furled black umbrella in his left hand (it had been quite rainy over the weekend) in an almost military manner.

"Mr Prewett," he said respectfully, offering his hand.

"A pleasure, Mr Kramer," Prewett said, and shook it. Howard was careful not to put on the firm grip he usually offered the fathers he saw; it was obvious from the careful way the old party had offered his hand that he had arthritis.

"A pleasure," Prewett repeated, and settled into the offered seat. He pulled on the knees of his pants, sharpening the creases, and propped his umbrella between his feet. He leaned on it and regarded Howard. It was as though an extremely urbane vulture had come to roost in Duckie Howie's office. The man was from Galway, and Howard could hear the faintest trace of the southern Irish accent coming through the old man's British one. But the resemblance to Al was there; it was something in the shape of the head and eyes.

"I'm glad you could come," Howard said, settling behind his desk, "although usually the students mother or father—"

It was the opening gambit, of course. Almost ten years in the counselling biz had taught Howard that, when an aunt or uncle or grandparent turned up for a conference, it usually meant trouble— the kind of trouble that was usually at the root of the problem. This wasn't the greatest news in the world, but for a boy of Alvin's intelligence, something like a heavy drug problem or a drinking problem like his older brother would've been much worse. There was already speculation among the staff about whether or not Alvin would be following in his brother's footsteps, and when his grades had taken that sudden dip, many feared the worst.

"Yes, of course," Prewett said, managing to sound both sorrowful and angry at the same time. "My niece and her husband asked if I could come and discuss this sorry business with you, Mr Kramer. Their son is a good boy, believe me. This … trouble is only temporary."

"Well, we all certainly hope so," Howard said. He noticed the yellowed fingers and said, "Feel free to smoke if you like. It's supposed to be against the rules, but I won't tell if you don't."

"Thank you," Prewett said. He removed a package of Dunhills from his inner suit coat pocket. Scratched a match alight on the sole of one of his black shoes. Lit up. Coughed a dank old man's cough over the first few drags. Tossed the blackened stump of the match into the ashtray Howard produced from his bottom desk drawer. Howard watched this little ritual, which seemed almost as formal as the old boy's shoes, with open fascination.

"Where to begin," Prewett said, settling the cigarette between the first two fingers of his right hand.

"Well," Howard offered kindly, "the very fact that you are here instead of one of Alvin's parents tells me something, you know."

"Yes, I suppose it does." He had another drag on his cigarette and folded his hands, and straightened his back. "My niece and her husband are having troubles in their home, of late. There is the problem of their eldest, of course, and their daughter has begun to retreat into herself."

Howard opened the folder sitting on his desk which contained Alvin's file. There were pieces of parchment inside, but not many.

"And you feel that these problems maybe contributory toward Alvin's academic performance?"

Prewett leaned forward perhaps six inches. His faded black eyes never left Howard's blue ones. Biting off each word precisely, he said: "The mother has started to drink." Nor was this a lie.

He resumed his former ramrod-straight position.

"Ah," Duckie Howie said.

Prewett nodded grimly. "The boy told me yesterday that he has come home twice to find his mother sprawled out on the kitchen table. He has taken it upon himself to fix dinner on these occasions and gotten her to drink enough black coffee to be at least awake when Harry comes home." This, too, was true; Al had indeed told Snape that, wrinkling his nose in boyish disgust.

"That's bad," Howard said, although he had heard worse—mothers with heroin habits; fathers who had suddenly gotten it into their heads to bang their sons or daughters. "Has Mrs Potter thought about seeking professional help for her problems?"

"The boy has, indeed, tried to convince both of them that this would be the best course," Prewett said. "They are both ashamed, I think. If they were given a little time…" He made a gesture with his cigarette that left a dissolving smoke ring in the air. "You understand?"

"Yes," Howard nodded, privately admiring the gesture which had produced the smoke ring. "What about the other members of your family? Uh…" he looked down at the file. "Ronald, Charles, William?"

"They are trying to help, but you must know that people can only be truly helped if they want it. Right now I'm not sure that my niece and her husband have fully faced up to their own problems yet."

"I see," Howard said, closing the file. "You've been honest with me, so let me return the favour."

"Thank you," the old man said stiffly.

"There are fourteen counsellors here, each carrying a load of about a hundred students. There was an incredible baby boom after the war, as is the case with most wars. And in this society, all children need help."

"Of course," Prewett said. He mashed out his cigarette in a shower of sparks and refolded his hands.

"Sometimes problems get by us, no matter how hard we try. Domestic issues and drug or alcohol problems are the two most common. At least Alvin is not mixed up with liquor or marijuana or LSD."

"Merlin forbid."

"And sometimes," Howard went on, "there's simply nothing we can do. Usually the kids that are the first to get spit out of the crazy machine we are trying to run here are the class troublemakers, the sullen, uncommunicative kids, the ones who refuse to even try. They are simply warm bodies waiting for the system to push them up through the forms, while they wait to be old enough to run away without their parents' permission so they can go off into the world and cause trouble out there, or marry their boyfriends or end up in jail. I'm being blunt here. Sometimes our system is, as they say, not all it's cracked up to be."

"I appreciate your candour."

"But it really is bad when the system starts to chew up a bright boy like Alvin. He ran out a ninety-two average for last year's work, and that puts him in the ninety-fifth percentile. His English averages are even better. He shows a flair for writing, and that's something special in a generation of kids that think culture is something put on yogurt labels.

"I was talking to Professor Hillcrest, the lower year history teacher, and she said Al passed in the finest term-paper she'd seen in twenty years of teaching. It was on the Death Eater camps during the war. She gave him the only O-plus she's ever given a student.

"He also demonstrates very fine magical aptitude and, while he's never going to be the greatest maths brain alive, he gives it the old college try in Maths and Arithmancy. Until this year. That's the whole story in a nut shell."

"Indeed."

"I hate like hell to see Alvin go down the tubes this way, Mr Prewett. And if he continues he will end up in summer school, which can do a boy like Alvin more harm than good. Your usual summer school session is a zoo, complete with the laughing hyenas and crazy monkeys. Bad company for a boy like Alvin."

"Certainly."

"So, here's the bottom line. I know a man in Raven's Glen. His name is George Highsmith, and he runs one of the finest counselling centres in Britain. He's also a very good friend of mine. He's a Muggle, but of course that doesn't matter now that everybody knows about our world.

"I suggest a series of appointments for Mr and Mrs Potter. Everything in confidence, of course. And I think you should be the one to go to them with the idea." Howard gave a wide smile. "Maybe we can get everyone back on track by June. Anything is possible."

Prewett, however, looked positively alarmed by this idea. "Both my niece and her husband are extremely private people. I believe they would resent the boy if I put this idea to them. Things are very delicate right now. I believe they could go either way. The boy has promised me he will work harder in his studies. He is very alarmed at this drop in his marks." Prewett smiled thinly, a smile Howard Kramer could not interpret. "More alarmed than you know. So I think things ought to be left alone, at least for the time being."

"I have a great deal of experience in these matters," Duckie Howie said. He folded his hands atop the file and looked at Prewett earnestly. "I really think counselling is in order here. You must understand that my interest in the problems of your niece and her husband begins and ends with the effect on Alvin … and that right now they are having quite an effect."

"Let me offer a counter proposal. You have, I believe, a system of warning of low grades?"

"Yes," Howard agreed cautiously. "We give out a card if a student's work in a given course falls below seventy-eight, or an A-minus, something we picked up from the Muggles when this school was being restructured. The kids, of course, refer to them as flunk cards."

"Very good," Prewett said. "My proposal is this. That should the boy receive one of these cards—even one—" he held up a gnarled yellow finger "—I will approach my niece about your counselling. I will go further. Should he receive one of these cards in April—"

"We give them out in May, actually."

"Yes? Then should he receive one of these cards in May, they will accept the counselling. I will guarantee it. They are worried about their son, Mr Kramer. But right now they are so wrapped up in their own problems and those of their other children that…" He shrugged and turned his hands up.

"I understand," Howard said.

"So let us give them that long to solve their own problems. They are both determined people and they will, as the Americans say, pull themselves up by their bootstraps."

"All right," Howard said after a moment's thought … and after glancing at the clock which told him he had another appointment in five minutes. "I'll accept that."

He stood, and Prewett stood with him. They shook hands again, Howard being mindful of the old man's arthritis. "But I have to tell you, in all honesty, that very few students can pull out of a slump like this in four weeks. There's a huge amount of material to make up—a huge amount. I suspect you will have to come through on your guarantee, Mr Prewett."

Prewett offered his mysterious, thin smile again. "Do you?" was all he said.

Something had troubled Duckie Howie through the entire interview, and it took him until lunchtime in the Great Hall to put his finger on it. They had been talking for almost twenty minutes, and he did not think the old man had once referred to his grandnephew by name.

# # #

Al pedalled his bike up Snape's walk and leaned it on its kickstand. School had let out fifteen minutes before. He took the front steps at a jump, used his door key and advanced into the gloomy kitchen. His face was a mixture of hope and gloom. He stood in the doorway for a moment, his stomach and vocal cords in a knot, watching Snape rock with his cupful of whisky in his lap. He was still wearing his best suit, although the tie had been lowered a few inches and the top button of his crisp white shirt was undone. He looked at Al expressionlessly, his reptilian eyes at half-mast.

"Well?" Al finally spoke.

Snape left him hanging a moment longer, a moment that felt like an eternity. Then, moving deliberately, he set his cup on the counter next to his bottle of Highland black and said:

"The fool believed everything."

Al let out a gusty sigh of relief. Before he could draw in another breath, Snape continued. "He wanted your poor, troubled parents to attend counselling sessions with a friend of his over in Raven's Glen. He was really quite insistent."

"Oh god. Did you … what did … how did you handle it?"

"I thought quickly. Invention under adverse circumstances is one of my strong points. I promised him that your parents would go in for his counselling if you receive a single flunk card in May."

The blood fell rapidly out of Al's face. "You did what?" he said in a choked voice, advancing into the kitchen. His face was now shiny with sweat. "I've already flunked an Arithmancy and history quiz since the marking period started. There was a charms quiz this afternoon and I flunked that too, I know I did. All I could think about was that fucking Duckie Howie and whether or not you could take care of him. You took care of him, all right," he finished, now sounding bitter. "Not get one flunk card? I'll probably get five or six."

"It was the best that could be done without arousing suspicion. That fool Kramer is only doing his job. Now you will do yours."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Very simple. You will go to your teachers tomorrow and apologise for your poor showing this far. Then, in the next four weeks, you will work. You will work harder than you ever have in your life. You—"

"It's impossible, man, completely impossible. I'm at least five weeks behind in all my classes. In maths and Arithmancy it's at least ten. It just can't be done."

"Nevertheless, you will do it," Snape said, and sipped his whisky.

"You think you're pretty smart, don't you?" Al shouted at him. "Well, I got news for you. You don't give orders anymore. Those days are over. You're nothing but a broken-down old man who probably pisses the bed."

"Listen to me, snot-nose," Snape said softly.

Al's head jerked angrily around at that.

"Before today," Snape said in a careful voice, "it was possible, just barely, for you to denounce me and come out clean yourself. I think you would've failed with your nerves in their current state, but never mind. It was still technically possible. Today, though, things changed. Today I impersonated your uncle, one Adrian Prewett, and I did it with your endorsement and connivance. If it came out now, boy, you would look blacker than ever. I took care of that today."

"I wish—"

"You wish!" Snape roared suddenly. "Never mind your wishes, your wishes make me sick, your wishes are no more than little piles of dog shit in the gutter! All I want to hear from you right now is for you to tell me if you understand the situation we are in!"

"I understand," AL muttered. His fists had been clenched while Snape shouted—he was not used to being shouted at. Now he opened them and saw with dull detachment that his fingernails had dug little half-moons into his palms. The wounds could've been worse, but along with talking to himself, he had taken up the habit of biting his nails over the past three months.

"Good," Snape said, calm again. "Then you will make your earnest apologies. And then you will study. Every day, you will study. During your free time at school, you will study. During your lunch hour, you will study, and after school you will come here do more of the same."

"Not here," Al said quickly. "At home."

"No. At home you will dilly dally and dawdle the same way you have been doing all along. Here, I can stand over you if necessary and keep your attention where it belongs. I can quiz you. I can listen to your lessons. I myself was a teacher for thirteen years, do not forget."

"If I don't want to come here, you can't make me."

Snape sipped more whisky. "This is true. You will stay home and fail to study. Things will go on as they have. May will arrive, and with it your flunk cards. Kramer will expect me to follow through on his counselling proposal. When I don't, he will call your parents. They will find out that sweet Mr Craven has impersonated your uncle at your request. They will find out about the altered grades. They—"

"Oh shut up already. I'll come."

"You're already here. Begin with mathematics and Arithmancy."

"Not now!"

"Yes now. You study every afternoon from now on. Begin with mathematics and Arithmancy."

Al looked at him for a moment before bending to retrieve his textbook from his bag. It was only a moment, but Snape saw murder in the boy's eyes. Not figurative murder, literal murder. It had been many, many years since Snape had seen it, but one never forgot that darkly burning, speculative glance. He supposed that, if there had been a mirror handy, he would've seen the same look in his own eyes as he stared at the white nape of the boy's neck earlier.

_I must protect myself,_ he thought with some amazement. _One underestimates at one's own risk._

He sipped whisky and smoked and rocked while he watched the boy study.

It was nearly five o'clock when Al finally biked away from Snape's house. He felt hollow-eyed, washed out, impotently angry. A maddening headache thumped behind his left temple. Every time his eyes had wandered from the page—from the maddening incomprehensible world of sets, subsets, exponents and numerological coordinates—Snape's sharp old man's voice had chided him. Otherwise, he had remained completely silent except for the smoker's coughs, the clunk of his glass and the ceaseless thump of slippers and rocker as they sang their annoying symphony in the corner.

He sat there like a vulture waiting for its prey to give up the ghost. Why had he ever gotten into this? How had he ever gotten into it? Things were a mess, a terrible mess. Weren't things bad enough at home already without—

He had made up some ground this afternoon, that couldn't be denied. Some of the concepts and set theory he had been wrestling with before the Christmas break had finally snapped home with an almost audible click. But it was impossible to think he could make up enough ground before the next test. Just … impossible. The next test was the following week and he was going to fail. And then it was four weeks until the end of the world.

He pedalled around the corner onto a street two blocks from home. There on the side of the road was a kitten which had apparently been knocked there by a passing car. Its mouth was opening and closing, its front paws trying to drag it away from the road where it could curl up to die. One of its beady little eyes stared up at Al. It mewed pitifully.

Al stood astride his bike staring at the kitten for a long time. Some of the warmth went out of the spring day as the sun sailed behind a bank of clouds. He supposed some of his friends would be down at the park organising try-outs for the informal Cricket League that usually started to aggregate in the three towns about now. Al, of course, usually was on one team or another, being something of a bowling star.

Not going to happen this year, though. He'd just have to tell them no. He would have to tell them: Guys, I got mixed up with this war criminal, see? I got him right by the bollocks and then— ha-ha, guys, this'll kill ya—I found out he was grabbing my bollocks as tight as I was grabbing his. I started having weird dreams and the cold sweats. My grades went to hell and I changed my report card and now I'm going to have to hit the books seriously hard for the first time in my life. I'm not afraid of being grounded or having my broom taken away, though; I'm afraid of going to jail right along with my useless fucking brother. And that's why I can't play any Cricket with you guys this year. You know how it is, guys."

A thin smile, rather a lot like Snape's and not at all like his usual broad grin, curved the corners of his mouth. There was no sunshine in it, no fun. It simply said: You know how it is, guys.

He rolled the bike forward with exquisite slowness over the kitten, listening with relish as its tiny bones fractured and it wailed feebly, in thin cries. He reversed and rolled over it again. It was still twitching. He reversed and rolled over it again, a bit of blood-soaked fur rolling up and down on his front tyre, revolving up and down, up and down. By then the wails had ceased and it wasn't moving any more. The kitten had kicked the bucket, the kitten had punched out, the kitten had gone to that great milk bowl in the sky, but Al kept rolling over and over its smashed body for five minutes. And that thin smile never left his lips.

_You know how it is, guys._


	10. Chapter 10

10

April, 2031.

Harry Potter came face to face with his wife's problems for the first time on the second day of April. He was no longer allowed the somewhat dubious pleasure of self-denial or hiding from things.

It was his lunch break, and he was eating in the Ministry cafeteria with Lisa, Susan Bones, and a couple other assistant prosecutors called Jack Sloper and Andrew Kirke. They were discussing the likelihood of the Ministry offering departmental pay raises, when his Muggle mobile phone vibrated in his pocket. Harry had always kept in touch with his Muggle-raised roots and had a Samsung Universe that he had purchased last week. It was charmed to work in magical areas by having the battery pack shielded; something very technical the spell creation division tried to explain to him, but which went right over his head.

He excused himself to the table and stepped out into the hallway.

"Is this Mister Harry James Potter?" a crisp official-sounding voiced snapped in his ear.

"Yes," Harry answered, now on guard.

"This is Dr Joseph Mengler at St Mary's Hospital in Glasgow. I'm sorry to say that your wife Ginevra has been admitted here."

"Ginny? What for?"

"It would really be better if you came here, Mr Potter," Mengler said, still sounding as though he was discussing nothing more important than picking up a pair of shoes. "Ask for me at the front desk when you arrive."

"Yes, okay," Harry said, feeling dazed. What the hell was Ginny doing way up in Glasgow, anyway?

He hung up the phone without saying good bye and walked slowly back into the cafeteria. Everything seemed off, somehow—the white walls of the cafeteria too bright, the clank of silverware too loud, the smell of the curry someone was eating in a corner too sharp.

James was sticking close to home, at least for the time being. Having been kicked out of Hogwarts had made him surlier than ever, and Harry's punishment—no spending money at all—had seriously curtailed any recreational activities he might have engaged in. Harry had also taken away the invisibility cloak that James, as eldest son, had taken to Hogwarts. After learning from girls' testimony what the boy had been up to … well, who was to say James might not take the cloak and do something like spy on girls in changing rooms or other such dubious activities along those lines? At least none of the girls he had engaged in his extracurricular fun with had been forced. Small blessing, but one took one's comforts were one could.

Then, last night, James had left again. This time he had just Apparated away without telling anyone where he was going. He was still gone when Harry had left for work this morning, and Harry had put a discrete word in with Neville Longbottom, head of the Aurors, to be on the lookout for him. He had also kept his mobile on, in case James called home. Harry really hadn't wanted to go to work, but he didn't want to sit around at home doing nothing, either, so here he was.

Now, instead of James, it was Ginny who was in trouble this time. What had happened? And again, what was she doing way the hell up in Glasgow?

Deciding the only way he was going to find out was by going there Harry went back over to the table and explained the situation to Lisa. She gave him the rest of the day off and told him to get out of there.

When Harry got to the hospital he asked to see Dr Mengler (very unfortunate name for a doctor, Harry thought), and was shown down a white corridor into a small white room. In Harry's experience, being shown into a small white room was never a good thing. He wished again and not for the first time of late for a cigarette. Even a god damn Carlton would've sufficed, for Merlin's sweet sake.

Five minutes later an angular man with a crew cut bounced into the room. He was wearing crisp white scrubs and a Caduceus pin on his lapel. Horn-rimmed glasses rested on the end of his slightly bulbous nose, and he seemed to always be in some kind of motion.

"Mr Potter?" the man asked, holding out his hand. "I'm Dr Mengler. Thank you for coming so promptly."

"Yes, that's me. What happened to my wife?"

Mengler took the chair across from Harry, his hands drumming a restless rhythm on the table. "I'm afraid the news isn't very good at all," he said, his voice sombre. "Your wife was found this morning by a hotel housekeeper. She was on the bathroom floor. She had intercourse with almost twenty different men, judging by the sperm types we obtained. She had been sodomized repeatedly, causing tearing. Her face had suffered a number of contusions, leading us to think that her participation in this … act was not entirely voluntary. And her blood alcohol level was very high, as well.."

"Oh God," Harry whispered. He had seen such things before in his work as an Auror, but it was entirely different when it was a member of your family. Things like this weren't supposed to happen to you, because you were inside a magic circle of protection. Policemen on both sides and doctors cheerfully and blindly compartmentalised as much as anyone else.

"What's the prognosis?" Harry asked, forcing himself to come back to the present. The doctor was eyeing him with a blank face— the face of one who must distance himself from the very human tragedies he faced every day, or else go insane. Harry wondered how compartmentalised his own life was.

"Physically, she will be fine. I suspect you will want to remove her to St Mungo's Hospital down in London, whose staff can deal with such injuries better than we are able. Emotionally and psychologically, her state is unknown, as she is still unconscious. But, Mr Potter, my recommendation is to seek help for her. An ordeal such as the one she has gone through often leaves scars, not all of them visible, and often might have root causes not apparent.."

"Yes, I know," Harry said, repressing with difficulty the urge to lay his head on the table and give up. Mengler bounced his foot on the floor in an irritating rhythm. A cart with a rattling wheel rolled by outside the door of the small white room. "May I go see her now?"

"Yes, you may. There is also a constable named McCloud who will wish to speak with you, once you are ready."

Harry nodded. It was SOP in sexual assault cases. "Where is she?"

"Right this way, Mr Potter," Mengler said, and led him out the door.

# # #

After his discussion with the constable, which really accomplished nothing since Harry had no clue where she had been the night before, Ginny was remanded into the care of St Mungo's. They fed her potions and cast some healing spells, and within about three hours all her soft tissue damage had been repaired.

Harry, meanwhile, had sat, blank faced, at her bedside, waiting until they were alone. He was not happy with her. He didn't blame her for what the men had done to her, but still. She was out fucking around instead of trying to heal their family. _What are you doing to try and heal your family, then?_ A snide voice asked inside his head. _You're just burying your head in the sand hoping it'll all go away, just like a damned Dursley. Way to go, Potter._

Harry gave an internal snort. Seemed he hadn't escaped his upbringing nearly as well as he thought he had, after all.

Ginny declined talking to a psychiatrist and demanded to be taken home. Harry tried pressing the point, but she wouldn't hear of it. So, very much against his will, Harry was forced to accede to his wife's wishes and side-along Apparated her home. It was, after all, her choice, and Harry couldn't force her.

When they got there, Ginny immediately went off to see Lily, who was back to using colouring books. She did not talk about what had happened the night before, and would not allow Harry to speak of it. She changed the subject, and if Harry persisted, she got up and left the room. Frustrated, Harry went to his home office and drank two shots of firewhisky. He was at his wits end and had no clue what to do.

Normally he would call Hermione for advice, but he did not want to bring outsiders into his family troubles if he could help it. More of the goddamn Dursleys' influence, he guessed. Hermione was also quite busy these days, and had drifted apart from him in recent years. Ron had, also, begun drifting away. After the war, he was the one who had changed most. He was now timid and all his Gryffindor courage seemed to have deserted him. He was content to live life as a small town shopkeeper with his teacher wife. It was almost a shame.

Harry Potter sighed to himself, poured another shot of firewhisky, and contemplated the destruction of his family. And in the silence of his office, listening to the artificially gay sounds of cartoons filtering in through the wall, he began to wonder, for the first time, if it was worth saving.

# # #

The old man stood halfway down the aisle of the dog pound as Roger MacBride came up to meet him. He seemed utterly unaffected by the smells of fur and urine, the loud barking and the hundred different strays throwing themselves against the mesh of their cages, howling and yapping. Roger pegged the fellow as a dog lover right off. His smile was sweet and pleasant. He carefully offered Roger a hand which was bunched and swollen with arthritis, and Roger shook it in the same spirit.

"Hello, sir," Roger said, raising his voice over the din. "Noisy as hell, isn't it?"

"I don't mind," the old man said. "My name is Archibald Craven."

"MacBride. Roger MacBride. Come on in the office here. It's a little quieter and smells better too."

In the office, Roger heard a story which was predictable but nevertheless affecting. Archibald Craven was in his seventies. He had come to Greaves when his wife died. He was lonely, his only friend being the boy who came to his house and read to him. Back in Essex, he had owned a beautiful golden retriever. Now, he had a house with a good-sized and fenced back garden. And he had read in the paper … was it possible that he could…

"Well, we don't have any retrievers. They go fast because they're so good with kids—"

"Of course, I understand."

"But I do have a half-grown German Shepherd pup. How would that be?"

Craven's eyes grew moist. "That would be perfect," he said, sniffing.

"The dog itself is free, but there is a fee for distemper and rabies shots. Nothing too drastic, though—only fifteen pounds."

"That seems reasonable."

"Sure. We think so. Same dog would cost you about two hundred pounds in a pet shop. People go there instead of here, though. They're paying for a set of papers, of course." Roger shook his head. "If they only knew how many fine dogs are destroyed each year…"

"You shoot them?"

"No. We give them gas. We can't keep them longer than sixty days. They don't feel a thing."

Craven offered a peculiar smile, and for a moment—it was rather silly—Roger felt a chill. "No," he said. "I'm sure they don't."

# # #

Al's seat in Mathematics and Arithmancy was the third desk in the second row. He sat there, trying to keep his face expressionless, as Professor Powers passed back their exam sheets. But his ragged fingernails were trying to bite into his palms again, and his entire body seemed to be running with a slow, acidic sweat.

_Don't be an idiot. There's no way you could've passed,_ he thought, watching with increasing doom as the professor advanced up the aisles, passing sheets left and right.

Nevertheless, he could not squash the foolish hope. It had been the first M&A exam in weeks which looked like it had been written in something other than Sanskrit. He was sure that in his nervousness (nervousness? Call it what it had really been: outright terror) that he hadn't really done that well, but maybe… well, if it had been anyone but Powers, who had a calculator for a heart…

STOP IT! He screamed at himself. For a moment, a cold, horrible moment, he was sure he had screamed it aloud into the nearly silent classroom. You flunked, nothing is going to change that, you'd better accept it! You flunked!

Al had done as Snape (ordered) suggested, and gone to all his teachers. Each of them had peered sternly at him and outlined nightmarish scenarios—being held back a year; having to take make up exams at the beginning of the next year, and worst of all, summer school—if he didn't get his marks back up. He didn't tell them that grades were the least of his worries; if he got found out, he was probably going to jail. But he had smiled and looked humble and told them he would do his best. And behind his eyes he felt that hot, impotent anger, pulsing like a tumour.

Finally the professor was at Al's row. He handed over the sheet without expression and moved on.

Al stared down at the parchment on his desk. He couldn't muster up the courage to flip it over and come face to face with his failure. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His heart seemed to come to a standstill.

At last, with a convulsive jerk, he flipped the sheet over so aggressively that it tore.

In the upper right corner was a number in a circle: 83. Below that was a letter: E. Below that was a brief notation:

_Good improvement! Check errors carefully. At least three were arithmetical rather than conceptual._

His heartbeat began again, at triple time. Relief washed over him, but it was not good relief—it was hot and complicated and strange. He closed his eyes, ignoring the buzz over the exam as students fought and dickered over an extra point—the usual post-exam dance of schools everywhere. Al saw redness behind his eyes, pulsing with his heartbeat. In that moment he hated Snape more than ever before. He snapped his hands into cold fists and he wished, wished, wished that Snape's scrawny chicken neck had been between them.

# # #

Harry and Ginny Potter had twin beds separated by a nightstand on which stood a lamp in the shape of a Crumple-horned Snorkack, with the two light bulbs being its eyes. Luna had given it to them as a wedding present, with a completely straight face, although Harry swore there was laughter behind her usually serene expression. It was hard to tell with that girl though. Harry had known her since 1995, when she had organized the West Country Resistance Movement, and he still couldn't get a read on her half the time.

Harry was sitting against the pillows, a wireless set of ear buds in his ears as he watched the television, which was about as thick as a bathroom mirror and mounted on the wall across the room. Ginny was in the next bed, curled up and reading an old book with a gothic castle on the cover.

James had finally come home that evening. He refused to answer questions about where he'd been, responding only: "Out," when pressed about it. Another shouting match had ensued, this time led by Harry, who was amazed to find himself shouting at his sons, when he had made a smug vow to himself that he never would. Not after life with the Dursleys. His shouting had been met with impenetrable teenage blankness, and when, after repeated questions had failed to gain him an answer, Harry had given up and told James to go to bed, the boy had turned without a word and banged up the stairs.

There had been a glassy-eyed quality to his stare that Harry hadn't liked, and he thought with a sinking feeling that it wouldn't be long before James got himself arrested on a serious drug bust; Just what he needed.

Al was still cheerful, though subdued, choosing to spend most of his time in his room, or out in the park, or reading to Mr Craven. When asked what he thought about his older brother's behaviour, he had exhibited wisdom beyond his years when he said: "Dad, you can't make other people's mistakes for them. James will either pull out of it or not. I know that sucks to hear, but it's true." And Harry, who felt a little choked up, could only nod and pat his son on the shoulder.

"I know, son. I just wish there was something more I could do. Our family is falling apart and I seem helpless to stop it."

Ginny's drinking had also continued, from a cocktail after dinner, to almost a full bottle before bed. She had not been found sprawled out in the kitchen table again, at least. Harry suspected his son's intervention there; perhaps watering down the bottles of liquor with water. All it would take would be a simple switching spell.

Lily was now almost totally uncommunicative, living in a childlike haze that even Luna could not penetrate. It was with a heavy heart that Harry had to withdraw her from Hogwarts School. If things continued, his poor baby girl might have to be enrolled in one of those schools for autistic children with her magic bound. There had been, thankfully, no outbursts of accidental magic. Luna theorized that it was because she had regressed to an age where she wasn't aware of magic any more.

"Harry?" Ginny's voice said quietly.

On the screen of the television, a new sitcom family was engaged in comic adventures. Harry smiled, wistful. His own family couldn't be like that anymore.

"Harry."

"Yeah?" He removed the ear buds and looked over at his wife. She looked back, and Harry realized that she was here, suddenly all here, looking back at him clearly for what seemed the first time in years. _She's going to finally talk to me,_ he thought, and his heart felt much lighter.

Only for it to sink back down again when she spoke.

"Do you think Al's all right?" she asked.

_Never mind Al,_ Harry wanted to shout. _What about you? What about us? What about this whole family?_

"I think he's remarkably well, given the circumstances," Harry intoned, a slight cold edge to his voice that Ginny seemed to ignore.

"Well, he's lost weight. And sometimes I hear him groaning in the night."

"Well, he does look a little scrawny. Remember what I was like at his age?"

"You think he's just growing?"

"And without all the starvation I went through, he'll probably end up taller than me. As for the groaning in the night, do you think he might be having nightmares?"

"Yeah." She smiled weakly. "I hear him when I go down the use the downstairs john. I know it's silly, but my grandmother always said you could drive someone insane if you woke them up in the middle of a bad dream."

"Why don't you just use the bathroom up here?" He had put it in himself, when he had expanded the house.

"You know the flush always wakes you up."

"So don't flush it."

"Harry! That's nasty."

He sighed.

"Sometimes, when I go in, he's tossing and turning. And his sheets are damp."

He grinned in the dark, his first real grin for a while. "I bet."

"What … Oi. That's nasty, too. Besides, he's only thirteen."

"Fourteen next month. He's a little precocious but not too young."

"How old were you?"

"I don't remember exactly; fourteen or fifteen. But I remember thinking I'd died and went to heaven. Luckily I was at school; I didn't really fancy finding out how the Dursleys would've felt had I left stains on their sheets."

"You were older than Al is now."

"All that stuff has been happening younger for a while. I heard from Hermione that they had started putting sanitary napkin dispensers in primary schools when she was Lily's age. It must be the fluoride or something. How old were you when you started?"

"I don't remember. Al's dreams don't sound like he died and went to heaven, though."

"Did you ask him about them?"

"Once … a couple of weeks ago… He said he didn't remember, but he had the oddest expression. I think he did."

"Ginny, I did my best to put most of my dear dead youth behind me, but one thing I know is that wet dreams aren't always pleasant."

"How's that?"

"Guilt. All kind of guilt. Possibly all the way back from when he was a baby and we made it clear that wetting the bed was wrong. Then there's the sex thing. Who knows what brings a wet dream on? Looking up a girl's dress in Hogsmeade? Brushing up against a girl on the bus? Who knows? The one I most clearly remember was me doing a Wronski Feint and then losing my robes and pants on the way down."

"You got off on that?" she asked, giggling a little, her first laugh in what felt like forever.

"Yeah. So if the kid doesn't want to talk to you about his John Thomas problems, don't force him. We've done our best to try and raise our kids without all that crazy guilt. But wizarding society, even with all the changes since it came out of the closet, is still pretty conservative. We Brits don't like giving up our traditions. And even though we've done our best, they still pick guilt up, like the germs they brought home in primary school. The way their teachers mince around certain subjects, or even your mum and dad. 'Don't touch it in the night, Al, or you'll start growing hair on your palms and you'll start to go blind, and eventually your thing will just rot off. So be careful, Al.'"

"Hey! He wouldn't do that!"

"Like hell," Harry said, grinning a little. "I heard him at it. Just like your grandmother telling you that you might drive somebody round the twist if you woke them up in the middle of a bad dream. Even my aunt, who never had any good advice to give anyone, told me to always wipe off the rim of a public toilet before using it so I wouldn't catch other people's germs. I bet your grandmother laid that one on you, too."

"No, my mother," Ginny said absently. "And she told me to always flush, which is why I go downstairs."

"It still wakes me up," Harry mumbled.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Harry was almost across the threshold of sleep when Ginny called his name again.

"What?" he asked, slightly irritated.

"Could you … could you please hold me?

Harry came fully awake and sat up on one elbow. There was a neediness and vulnerability in his wife's voice that he'd never heard; it reminded him of himself in those horrible days after she had dragged him out of his pity party.

Silently, he pulled her into his bed and she burrowed against him. He felt dampness as she began to cry into his chest.

"Ginny?"

"I'm sorry, Harry. I'm sorry for being such a shitty wife to you for all these years and making you have to look elsewhere, for you having to find out about my little trips and … oh I'm just so sorry for everything." She cried some more—a deep, bawling, bewildered sound.

"And now our family is coming to pieces and I think a lot of it is partially my fault and I don't know what to do and … oh Harry…"

Harry continued to hold her, stroking her beautiful hair, which was still fiery red with only a few grey strands. He wasn't overly surprised to hear that she had known about Lisa; he had, after all, not gone to a great amount of trouble to hide the affair. He was more interested in why she had finally at least partially acknowledged the problems they were going through and finally noticed the elephant in the middle of the lounge.

Harry continued to stroke her hair, murmuring nonsense soothing words, until she finally quieted. She raised her head off his now very damp pyjama shirt and looked at him. Her face was even blotchier and puffier than Lisa's was when she cried.

"What brought that on?" Harry wondered, reaching into the nightstand drawer and handing her a tissue.

Ginny blew her nose, a surprisingly loud foghorn sound from such a little woman. "I don't know," she said. "I guess … talking about Al and how basically normal he is compared to the rest of us … I guess I just got tired of pretending."

"We should have done that years ago," Harry couldn't help but add.

"I know," Ginny said. She looked sad. "And I wonder how much of Lily's … problem is our fault, too."

"She saw you last year. In Cardiff … Dancing in a pub."

Her wide eyes came up to his. "No. How did you find out?"

"Luna told me last week. I asked her if there was anything-anything at all she could tell me. She said Lily told her at school that she was worried we thought of her and her brothers as mistakes."

"Oh…" Ginny sniffled again. "We've made a right proper mess of things, haven't we?"

Harry couldn't argue. They certainly had.

They were silent for a while, just regarding each other in the dark room.

"I found out about you and Lisa three years ago. You said her name in your sleep. I lay awake all night thinking about that. I couldn't very well throw any stones, could I? Not without being the world's grandest hypocrite."

Harry wisely didn't comment.

"Have you any ideas on how we can fix this mess?"

"Just bringing it out into the open is a start," Harry said. "We can discuss it more later, after we each have some sleep. Nobody ever makes rational decisions at three in the morning."

She smiled wanly. "I suppose not. Can I sleep here with you?"

"Of course you can," Harry said, raising the covers.

Ginny crawled in and spooned against his front. And, after a long while, they slept.

# # #

"Stop staring out the window. There is nothing out there to interest you," Snape said.

Al stared at him, once more sullen. On the table in front of him, his history text lay open, displaying a colour plate of British soldiers in pie plate World War I helmets. Many of them were grinning proud, patriotic grins, off to do their part in fighting back the Huns. Alvin Potter was not grinning, however.

"You like being a slave driver, don't you?"

"I like being a free man," Snape replied. "Study."

"Suck my cock."

"As a boy," Snape said, "I would've had my mouth washed with lye soap for saying such a thing."

"Times change."

"Do they?" Snape sipped his whisky. Study."

"Shut up!" Al snapped his book shut. It made a harsh snapping sound in Snape's kitchen. "I can't ever catch up in time, anyway, not before the test. There's fifty pages of this shit left, all the way up to 1930. I'll make a cheat sheet at lunch tomorrow or something."

"You will do no such thing!" Snape barked.

"Who's going to stop me, you?"

"Boy, you still don't comprehend the stakes we play for. Do you think I enjoy keeping your snotty, whiny nose in your books? I hated it back when I was a teacher, and I hate it now." His voice rose, whipsawing, demanding, and commanding. "Do you think I enjoy listening to your tantrums, your kindergarten swears? 'Suck my cock,'" Snape mimicked savagely in a high, falsetto voice that made Al flush with anger. "'Who cares, I'll do it tomorrow, suck my cock!'"

"You like it!" Al shouted back. "The only time you don't feel like a zombie is when you're on my back! So give me a fucking break, okay?"

"If you are caught with one of those cheat sheets, who do you think will be told first? What do you think will happen?

Al stared at his hands, with their chewed fingernails, and didn't reply.

"Who?"

"You know. Duckie Howie, I guess. Then my parents."

Snape nodded. "And then what do you think will happen? Put that cheat sheet in your head, where it belongs."

"I hate you," Al muttered, but he opened up his book again, the old English tommies grinning out from under their helmets, ready to show everybody that while the British Empire might be going down and out, it was far from dead.

"That's a good boy," Snape said, his voice almost tender as he rocked with his cupful of whisky in his lap.

# # #

Al Potter had his first wet dream on the last night of April, and he emerged from it, clawing and gasping, to the sound of the last cold rain of the month sloshing down the gutters he and his father had repaired last fall.

In the dream, he had been at Brecon, standing in one of the underground laboratories. He was naked, standing by a cold steel autopsy table. On the table, a young girl of exquisite, almost ethereal form was strapped. Her head was covered in an oxygen tent.

Standing across from him and wearing nothing but a butcher's apron stained with unidentifiable gunk was Snape. When he turned to check the monitoring equipment, Al saw his scrawny, hair-covered old man's buttocks grinding at each other like misshapen white stones. When he turned back, he handed something to Al. Although he had never seen it, Al recognized it immediately.

It was a dildo. It was made of metal, and it glittered coldly in the torchlight like some obscure implement of torture. The dildo was hollow, and snaking out the base was a long cord ending in a squeeze bulb.

"It's all right," Snape said in the dream. "Go ahead. The dark Lord says it's your reward for studying."

Al looked down at himself. His small penis was standing up at an angle from the thin down of his pubic hair. He slipped the dildo on, and it shrank to fit snugly. It was tight, but there was some kind of lubricant in there. It felt warm and slick and delightful. Just the thing.

He looked down at the masked girl and suddenly felt as though his thoughts had slipped into a perfect groove. All things seemed right. The doors of perception had been opened. He would go through them.

He got his knees on the table and paused, gauging the angle. His ridiculous engorgement jutted out from his slight, winter-pale boy's body.

Dimly, as though in another world, he heard Snape reciting: "Test run, sixty-eight. Sexual stimulus, metabolism, magical capacity, mental ability. Based on the Rookwood theory of negative reinforcement. Subject is a young half-blood girl, thirteen years of age, clinically autistic, no scars, no other identifying marks—"

The girl cried out when the end of the dildo touched her. She struggled to free herself, or lacking that, to try and bring her legs together. The cry was pleasant. Her struggles were pleasant.

_This is the kind of thing they couldn't show in the magazines,_ Al thought, _but it's there anyway._

Al thrust into her with an abrupt movement. She screeched like a siren. After her initial efforts to free herself, the girl lay rigid, enduring, silent. The lubricated interior of the dildo rubbed with almost painful pleasure against his arousal. His fingers toyed with the rubber bulb in his left hand.

In the distance, Al could hear Snape reciting pulse, respiration, brain waves, magical build-up, and stroke count.

As the climax began to build with delirious suddenness inside him, Al became perfectly still and squeezed the bulb. The girl arched off the table, as a crackling discharge of magical energy blasted out of the end of the dildo with a snap, like the sound of a foot breaking a thin rime of ice on a pond. Her arms and legs thrummed, her belly vibrated and her small breasts heaved.

And as the climax roared over him with cataclysmic suddenness the mask shifted and he saw that the girl was his sister, and the horror of that realization only added to the intensity and it was the end of the world, thundering apocalypse…

He woke to the distant sound of an early spring thunderstorm and the rain still rushing down the gutters. He was huddled in a hot, dark ball on his side and there was a feeling of wetness both on his cheeks and on his lower belly and he became coldly sure that he was bleeding to death.

Then with cringing disgust, he realized what that wetness lower down actually was. Jizz … Cum … Jungle juice … Words from overheard conversations and bathroom stalls.

His hands balled helplessly into fists. His dream climax recurred to him, strength less and pallid, frightening. Was he really that sick? That final scene was both compelling and horrifying, like a bite into a fruit which you realize (a second too late) is only so amazingly sweet because it is rotten. He couldn't ever do something like that, could he?

Yet nerves still sang, retreating from their spike point.

It came to him then. What he would have to do. What he would have to do to get himself back. He would have to kill Snape. That was the only answer.

"Kill him and it's all over," he whispered into the rainy dark. Games were done, story time over. This was all about survival now.

"Yes sir," he whispered again, semen drying on his belly and his eyes open wide, staring at the ceiling as he listened to the rain.

Snape always kept three or four bottles of Highland Black on a shelf over the cellar stairs. He would open the door (usually two sheets to the wind, more often than not), and lean out over those stairs to grab a bottle, keeping one hand on the shelf for support and using the other to grab the neck. The cellar was hard-packed dirt which Snape oiled every couple of months to keep the bugs from breeding down there. But, dirt or cement, old men's bones break easily. And old men are prone to accidents. The post-mortem would show that Mr "Craven" had had a skinful of booze when he fell.

"What happened, Al?"

"I went over to visit him. He gave me a key 'cause sometimes he falls asleep in the afternoon. I called his name, and he didn't answer, so I went into the kitchen and … and—" Then tears.

They would believe it. Sure they would. What was not to believe? He would have himself back again; it would all be over.

Al lay in the dark and kept listening to the ceaseless sound of the rain. He expected to lay wakeful for the rest of the night, going over it and over it. But barely half an hour after his terrible dream and it's even more terrible climax, he fell asleep with one fist curled under his chin. His sleep was dreamless, and he awoke on the first of May feeling fully rested, for the first time in months.


	11. Chapter 11

11

May, 2031.

For Al, that Friday was the longest of his life. He sat in class after class, not paying attention to anything, but waiting with anticipation for the last five minutes of the hour, when the instructor would move among the students and pass out their small pile of flunk cards. He was glad that Hogwarts had done away with double periods; having to sit through two hours of suspense in every class would've been murder.

Each time the instructor passed near Al's desk with that pile of cards, he grew cold. Each time he or she passed him by, he felt wave after wave of dizziness and semi-hysteria.

Finally, it was M&A class. Professor Powers moved up and down the rows, passing out more cards than most other instructors. He approached Al's desk, hesitated … and lay a card face down upon it.

Al looked at it coldly, with no expression at all. _This is it, he thought. Move, countermove, checkmate. Unless Snape can think of something else. And I have my doubts._

Without much interest, Al turned the card over to see by how much he had missed his Acceptable. It must have been close, but trust old tower of Powers to not give anyone a break.

The grade spaces were completely blank—both the letter and numerical grade. In the comments section, Powers had written:

_I'm sure glad I don't have to give you one of these for real! Congratulations. R. Powers._

The dizziness returned in wave after wave, roaring through his head, making it feel like it was full of helium. One thought kept repeating over and over, like a mantra: _You will not faint! Not faint! Not faint!_

Gradually the dizziness abated, and he had to wrestle with a mad urge to go tearing after Powers, spin him around and jam the freshly sharpened end of his quill into one of his eyes. And through it all, his face remained completely blank. The only sign of his inner turmoil was a mild tick in his right eyelid.

# # #

Half an hour later, he was pedalling his bike toward Snape's house. He had arrived home after school let out to find his parents sitting together in the living room, watching television. Something about this struck him as odd, but he had other things on his mind.

"Today is your day, old man," he whispered to himself, as he pedalled through the cloudy sunlight. "Yes indeed."

"And so," Snape said when Al came into the kitchen. "The prisoner returns from the stocks. What said they, prisoner?"

He was wearing his bathrobe and a pair of hairy woollen socks that climbed halfway up his shins. Socks that would be real easy to slip in. Al glanced at the bottle of Highland Black Snape was currently working. Only a couple fingers left in it. It would be soon.

"Nothing below an A," Al said. No flunk cards. I'll still have to change some of my grades in June, but maybe just the averages. I'll be getting all O's and E's this quarter if I keep up my work."

"You will," Snape said placidly, tipping more whisky into his cup. "We will see to it." "This calls for a celebration, I think." His speech was slurred—not much, but noticeable to Al. The old fuck was as drunk as he ever got.

Today … It would have to be today.

But he was up to it. He could handle it. No problem.

"Celebrate, shmelebrate," he told Snape.

"I'm afraid the boy with the caviar and truffles hasn't shown up yet," Snape said, ignoring Al. "Help is so unreliable these days. How about some crackers and brie while we wait?"

"Sure. What the hell."

Snape rose, banging his knee on the table with a wince. He crossed the creaky linoleum in his hairy socks to the fridge, got out the cheese and a knife, and some crackers out of the bread box. He brought them over to the table. "All carefully injected with carbolic acid," he said, and grinned his gap-toothed grin. Al smiled back.

"So quiet today!" Snape exclaimed. "I thought you would have been turning cartwheels all the way up the front hall." He tipped the last of his whisky into his cup. Sipped, smacked his lips.

"I'm still numb, I guess," Al said. "Still trying to get used to it." He cut himself some cheese and bit into a cracker. He had stopped refusing Snape's food a long time ago. Snape thought there was a letter of protection with a friend. There wasn't, of course, and Al supposed the old buzzard probably had guessed that. He didn't figure Snape would quite dare put his surety to such an extreme test as murder, though.

"What shall we talk about today?" Snape asked, chewing a cracker noisily and finishing off the last gulp of whisky. "I'll give you the day off from studying today, how would that be? Hmm?"

Al looked down at the hands which would do the deed. They were steady, not as much as a tremble.

"Anything you want. I don't care."

"Shall I tell you about the time we tried to mix veela magic with mandrakes? Our experiments with basilisk eyeballs and blind people? Or how about the time I went to Diagon Alley and almost got caught. That was a close one, I can tell you." He pantomimed shaving one cheek, and laughed.

"Anything," Al repeated. "Really."

Snape stared at the empty whisky bottle for a moment, tapping his fingers in an absent rhythm on the table. Then he rose, whispered across to the dustbin, and dropped the bottle inside. He stood there, contemplating something, then turned and headed for the cellar door.

"No, none of those, I think," he said, opening up the door.

Al sat there, ready.

"You don't seem in the mood. I think I will instead tell you the story of an old man, an old man who was afraid."

Snape's back was to the table now. Al got up silently, being sure not to move his chair. He was fumbling on the wall for the old fashioned knob that turned on the lights down stairs.

"He was afraid of a young boy who was, in a queer way, his friend. The boy's parents did not suspect the depths to their child, and would be quite shocked were they to find out.

He had at last found the knob and turned it on with his bunched, arthritic fingers. Al walked—almost glided—across the hilly linoleum, being careful to avoid the places where it creaked. He knew this kitchen almost as well as his own, perhaps even better.

"At first," Snape continued, descending the first steps with a long-time drunk's careful movements, "the boy was not the old man's friend." At first, the old man disliked the boy a great deal." He was level with the shelf now, just standing there. "Then the old man grew to … to enjoy his company, although there was still a strong dislike there."

Al glided up behind him, cool—no, more like arctic now—and stood, waiting. He decided he would wait until Snape leaned out over the steps to grab the whisky bottle. He laced his fingers together into a large fist, the same way he had done when he had first met the old man … And waited.

"His feeling of enjoyment," Snape went on, now thoughtful, "came from a feeling of equality. You see, both the old man and the boy had mutual death-grips on each other. Each of them had secrets they did not want to get out. And then it came to the old man that things were changing. He was losing some of his hold over the boy. Some of it or all of it, depending on how desperate the boy might be, or how clever. And it occurred to the old man on one long, sleepless night that he might need to insure safety for himself in another way. By acquiring a new hold on the boy."

Now Snape leaned out over the stairs, letting go of the railing, but Al stood behind him, not moving. The arctic chill was seeping out of him, to be replaced with a hot flush of anger and confusion, and a sense of impending doom. As Snape grasped the neck of a fresh bottle of Highland Black, Al thought viciously that he had the smelliest cellar in town, oil or no oil. It smelled as if something had died down there.

"So the old man rose from his bed and sat at his little desk. What is sleep to an old man? Very little. And he thought to himself how clever he had been, enmeshing the boy in the very crimes the boy was holding over his own head. And he thought about how hard, how very hard, the boy had worked to bring his marks back up. How if, once they had recovered, the boy would have no further use for the old man. If the old man were dead, the boy could be free."

He turned around, holding the fresh bottle of whisky by the neck. "I heard you, you know," he said, his voice almost gentle. "From the moment you stood up. You are not as quiet as you think you are, boy, at least not yet."

Al said nothing.

"So!" Snape said, coming back up the stairs and shutting the cellar door. "What is an old man to do? He thought for a moment, and then he wrote everything down. From first word to last, everything was written down, and when he finished it was almost dawn and his hand ached from the arthritis. But he felt safe, protected. So he lay back in his bed and went to sleep. He slept so late, in fact, that he almost missed his favourite daytime dramas."

He was back in his rocker. From the pocket of his bathrobe he produced a very old pocketknife and began to cut painstakingly around the seal of the whisky bottle.

"The next day, the old man went down to the bank where he kept his small checking and savings account. He spoke to one of the officers who was able to answer all of the old man's questions most satisfactorily. He rented a safe deposit box. The officer explained that there would be two keys, one belonging to the bank and one to the old man, and that both keys would be needed to open the box. No one but the old man could use his key without a signed, notarized writ of permission. With one exception."

He tipped a fresh shot of whisky into his glass and smiled at Al's set, white face.

"That exception occurs in the event of the box holder's death."

"What … what happens then?" Al asked, his voice hoarse.

"Then, the box is opened in the presence of an officer of the bank, and an agent from English Revenue. The contents of the box are inventoried. They will find only a single twelve-page document. It is non-taxable, but still quite interesting, yes?"

The fingers of Al's hands, which were still knotted together, squeezed together even tighter, until the knuckles where white. "You can't … you can't do that," he said, his voice stunned, disbelieving. It was the voice of a person who witnesses a flying saucer in the bathtub. "You just … can't do that."

"My boy," Snape said, his voice kind, "I have."

"But … I … you…" His voice suddenly rose into an agonized howl. "You're old! Don't you know that you're old? You could die anytime! Any time at all! And then—"

Snape got up. He went over to the cabinet and took down a cheap plastic glass with cartoon characters around the rim. He brought it over and set it in front of Al. Picked up the whisky bottle and poured half a shot into it.

"What's that for?" Al muttered. "I don't drink. Drinking's for cheap tramps like you."

"Lift your glass, boy. Today is a special occasion. Today you drink."

Al looked at him for a long moment. Then he picked up his glass.

Snape tapped his cheap plastic glass against Al's own cheap plastic glass.

"I offer a toast, boy—long life! Long life to both of us! Prosit!" He knocked back his whisky at a single gulp and began to laugh. He sat in his rocker, his feet hitting the linoleum as he rocked back and forth and laughed, and to Al he never looked more like a vulture, a vulture in a bathrobe, a disgusting beast of carrion.

"I hate you," he whispered, and then Snape began to choke on his laughter. It sounded as though he were coughing, laughing and strangling at the same time.

Al quickly got up and clapped him on the back until the fit subsided.

"Thank you," Snape croaked. "Drink your drink, boy. It will do you good."

Al drank it. It tasted like very bad Muggle cold medicine and lit an unpleasant fire in his belly.

"I can't believe you drink this shite all day," he said, his face puckering. "Tastes like cigarette ashes in swamp water. You ought to quit. Quit drinking and smoking."

"Your concern for my health is touching," Snape said, pouring a fresh shot and lighting a cigarette, as though daring Al to say anything about it. "I am equally solicitous of your own welfare, boy. So many boys killed by riding their bicycles carelessly! You should take the bus, like me."

"Why don't you just go fuck yourself?" Al burst out.

"My boy," Snape said, "we are fucking each other—didn't you know that?"

# # #

Harry and Ginny tried to make love for the first time in almost two years the day after Al's confrontation with Snape. It had not been all that great, but they told themselves it was a necessary step in trying to get their marriage back on track.

For Harry, there were two problems. Visions of Lisa Turpin kept intruding into his thoughts. Lisa, with her big warm breasts, soft arms and legs, and her smell of lavender, and the way she would wrap her limbs around him and rise to meet his every thrust with delightful intensity. Fact was, that Lisa was just out and out a better sex partner, because she gave her all to him, and he didn't have to wonder about her.

Then there was the other thing. Ginny had been with possibly as many as a hundred different men throughout the course of their marriage. Part of him believed her when she told him that none of them had meant anything to her, but that was only the intellectual side. The purely male side of him, however, thought coldly that she was comparing, judging, and that he was falling short in some way. Images of her writhing under a series of men who were all hung like Buckbeak the Hippogriff danced behind his eyes, while she screamed and cried and begged for more. It was a seemingly insurmountable obstacle. And, just adding to the fun, he was fully aware that he was a complete hypocrite. What a fucked up mess.

After about five minutes, the conflicting emotions within him caused him to go as limp as a wet French fry and he rolled off her, almost crying.

Ginny sat up, half angry, half sympathetic, and asked him what the trouble was.

When he told her (leaving out the part about how Lisa was a better sex partner; there was being honest and then there was being plain suicidal), she sighed. "I don't know how to reassure you, Harry. This is your ego talking. I realise I had sex with a lot of different men, but I only have one husband."

"It doesn't make sense, I know it. What you were doing didn't bother me, but now that it's out in the open, it does. It's completely illogical. Just give me time. I'll get over it, okay?"

"Okay, Harry," she said, sounding resigned. "I do want to make this work. We have a lot of years together, you know."

_But are we trying to make this work because of those years, or because we're afraid of the years to come,_ Harry wondered, but didn't say.

# # #

About a week after his reprieve at school and his conversation with Snape, Al was sitting on a disused platform in the old train yard. Since the construction of the motorway, which ran about a hundred yards from here, this yard had fallen into disrepair, being passed over for the much newer station in Raven's Glen. He was sitting and throwing old cinders one at a time onto the rusty rails.

_Why didn't I just go ahead and kill him?_

Because he was a rather logical boy, the logical answer came first. No reason at all. Sooner or later (probably sooner, given Snape's habits), he was going to die. And when he died, be it from a heart attack on the bus or by Al's hand, everything would come out. Everything. But at least he could have the pleasure of wringing the old vulture's neck.

He's a tough old bastard, though. Cigarettes or not, booze or not, he's lasted this long. So … so maybe it'll be later. And then—

From beneath him came a fuzzy snort.

Al jumped to his feet, dropping the cinders. That snorting sound came again. Al paused, on the verge of running, but it didn't recur.

Two hundred yards away, there were four lanes of traffic on the motorway. Down here, there were rusty fences, broken tracks and splintery platforms. The cars up there glistened like mutant beetles, and down here there was only Al and whatever had snorted.

With caution, Al bent down and peered beneath the old platform. His left hand was gripping his wand, and his right hand was propped on his knee.

There was an old tramp lying up under there, wearing pants so dirty they looked almost like part of the ground. A grimy white t shirt lay across a stack of ribs like a xylophone. He was wearing high-topped trainers, the tops of which gaped like agonized mouths. Al put his age at somewhere between thirty and two hundred; he thought the tramp smelled like Snape's cellar.

The tramp's bleary, bloodshot eyes opened and regarded Al with a soupy lack of wonder. As they did, Al remembered the Swiss Army Knife in his right hand pocket. He had gotten it last year, during his brief but satisfying love affair with fishing, and just always carried it around with him. It was comforting, somehow.

He remembered the clerk who had waited on him. "We sell over a thousand of these each year, son. Knife like this might just save your life someday."

A thousand a year.

Al slowly reached into his right pocket to grip the knife, replacing his left hand on his knee. In his mind's eye he saw Snape using his own old pocketknife to slit the seal around the top of the whisky bottle, the blade going slowly round and round. A moment later, he realised he had an erection. Cold terror stole into him.

The tramp's chapped lips open and a tongue made permanently yellow by nicotine stole out to brush across them. "Got a pound, kid?

Al looked at him without expression.

"Got to get up to London, me. Got a 'pointment. Got a job offertunity. Nice kid like ya must have a pound."

Yeah, you could clean out a tuna with a knife like that, hell you could clean out a damn halibut with it if you wanted to, and if you wanted to use it to clean out some dirty, stinking, nasty old tramp, nobody could trace it back to you. Not like the Killing Curse. There was a surveillance net all over the U.K. listening for the three unforgivable curses now, but a knife, a nice ordinary knife…

The tramp's voice dropped into a raspy, tenebrous whisper. "For a fiver I'd do you a blowjob—best one you ever had. You'd cum your brains out, kid…"

Al's right hand came out of his pocket. He wasn't sure what was in it until he opened it. A ten pence piece, a half-pound coin, and Three pennies. He threw these at the tramp and fled.


	12. Chapter 12

12

June, 2031.

James Potter was finally arrested on the third of June. He was arrested in the company of three lesser-known seventh years from Slytherin house, in the suburb of London known as Shoreditch. They all three had been cut off from family funds and were trying to earn more, and they all three were angered at the perceived injustices heaped upon their persons.

They tried Apparating into a bank vault to steal a bag of Muggle money. Neither of them, however, was very well-versed in the Muggle world, or the advances that had been made in Muggle/wizarding relations over the past thirty years, in spite of the fact that James's own father had been rather instrumental in them. They didn't pay too close attention in history class, either.

As a result, none of the would-be robbers realized that every bank in the United Kingdom had been fitted with one way Apparition wards. You could get in, but you couldn't get back out.

When they popped into the still, dead air of the bank vault, a loud, whooping siren sounded. It was so loud and so unexpected that one of the boys wet himself slightly. A hissing gas erupted from hidden vents in the ceiling and, less than five seconds after their arrival, the boys were all unconscious.

Through one of those quirks of fate or coincidence which sometimes obtain in real life, but which no self-respecting novelist would dare invent, the DCI who arrested the boys was named Albert Lestrade. He was a skinny, ill-tempered man with a prominent Adam's apple and a bad case of eczema, who had grown tired of hearing Sherlock Holmes jokes on his first day at Scotland Yard. Luckily for the boys, none of them had ever read the adventures of the venerable Mr Holmes and so did not aggravate their circumstances further by cracking wise about Watson and Moriarty.

They were handcuffed and taken to the local police substation, and, having been briefed on how to handle magical prisoners, the head of Magical Law Enforcement was called.

Harry was at his desk wrapping up a case file for trial when he got the news. This time, Susan walked down to his office, looking sombre, and told him in person. There was nothing she could do, she said, brusquely sympathetic, because they had been caught red handed trying to steal untold sums of money from a banking institution. They were going to jail, and that was that.

The trial was swift, as such things go, and by June twelfth they had been sentenced to a year and a day. It could've been longer, but the Wizengamot was lenient, given that nothing had been actually taken, and the fact that they were so young.

To Harry's pride, Ginny had not taken a single drink or gone on a single trip during the whole thing. She cried a lot, though. And Harry was there to hold her, and to tell her things would be fine, even if he doubted it himself.

And once James was actually in the new Ministry prison (they did away with sentencing everybody to Azkaban; only cases like murder and assault got sent there, now), the house did regain, to a degree, its former low-key mellow character. Even Lily started to come out of it, beginning to slowly take interest in the world around her once more. And for a while, that was enough.

# # #

Alvin Potter, now fourteen, rolled up Snape's walk on his bicycle. He parked it at the foot of the steps and leaned it on its kickstand.

The _Guardian_ was lying on the bottom step in a plastic bag. Al picked this up and mounted the steps.

He regarded the door bell, beneath which the signs _ARCHIBALD CRAVEN_ and _NO PEDDLERS, NO SOLICITORS, NO SALESMEN_ still kept their places. Two doors down, the hum of an electric lawn mower drifted in the warm air.

Snape's lawn was looking ragged; he would have to remind the old man to find a boy this year. He forgot things like that more often now. Perhaps it was onrushing senility; more likely it was the pickling influence of bottle after bottle of Highland Black on his brains. That was an adult thought for a boy of fourteen to have, but Al didn't feel proud of it. He had a lot of adult thoughts these days. A lot of them weren't all that great.

Al didn't bother with the bell anymore; he had a key. He let himself in.

He felt his usual instant of cold fear when he came into the kitchen. There the old man was, slumped over in his rocker, the cup on the table, the bottle beside it. A cigarette had burned down to a thread of lacy grey ash in the ash tray, where many others had been stubbed out. The old man's mouth hung open. His face was yellowed. His bunched once-elegant hands dangled off the end of the chair arms. He didn't appear to be breathing.

"Snape," Al said, a little harshly. "Rise and shine, Snape."

There was the usual wave of relief when Snape twitched and finally sat up.

"Is it you? So early?"

"They let us out early on the last day of school." Al pointed at the trail of ash. "Someday you'll burn the house down doing that."

"Maybe," Snape said, his tone indifferent.

He picked up the pack of cigarettes from where it was sitting behind the ash tray. He shot one out (it rolled to the end of the table before he could catch it), and got the thing going. A protracted fit of coughing followed. Al winced with distaste. When the old man really got going, Al half-expected him to spit out greyish-black chunks of lung tissue onto the table … and he'd probably grin as he did it.

At last, the coughing eased enough for Snape to say, "What've you got there?"

"Final grades."

Snape took it and held it at arm's length so he could read it.

_Language Arts: O_

_Magical and Non-magical History: O_

_Basic Mathematics and Arithmancy: E minus_

_Potions: O_

_Transfiguration: E plus._

_Charms: O_

_Magical Defence: O_

"Very good," Snape said, handing back the card. "We have saved your bacon, boy. Will you have to change any of these averages in the last column?"

"Only M&A, potions and transfiguration, I think, and probably only by eight or nine points. I guess none of this is going to come out, and I know I owe it to you. I'm not proud of it, but it's true. So, thanks."

"What a touching speech," Snape said, and started coughing again.

"I guess I won't be seeing you around too much from here out," Al said, and Snape abruptly stopped coughing.

"No?" he said, politely enough.

"No. After my brother's … troubles, my dad changed our vacation time to next week. We're going to Spain for a month, coming back on my dad's birthday. Then I'll be pretty busy with new subjects next year for the standard academics test. They really put the pressure on you starting in fourth year."

"Ah yes, the Muggle exams," Snape said, idly watching a fly trundle across the dirty tablecloth. "For three hundred years wizard kind has worried and whined about the Muggles, and here they are, inescapable." He smiled toothlessly at Al. "But we know the solution, don't we, boy?"

Al looked down, feeling the old sickening lurch in his stomach. Terror, hate, and a desire to do something so terrible it could only be fully contemplated in dreams.

"Look, I plan on going to university, if you didn't know. I know that's a long way off, but I think about it. My dad says one should always plan ahead. I even know what I want to major in. History."

"Admirable," Snape said, drawing wheezily on his cigarette. "He who will not learn from the past is—"

"Oh shut up."

Snape did so, agreeably enough. The boy was not finished. He folded his hands and watched him.

"I could get that letter back from my friend," he blurted. "I could, you know it? I could get it back, let you read it and then burn it. If—"

"If I would only remove a certain document from my safety deposit box."

"Well, yeah."

Snape sighed, a long, rueful, gusty sigh. "My boy," he said, "you still do not comprehend the situation. You never have, right from the beginning. Partly because you are a boy still, but not completely; even in the beginning, you were a very old boy. Most of the problem stems from your absurd self-confidence which tells you that things really do turn out all right, which does not allow you to see the full consequences of what you were doing, and which does not let you see it, even now."

Al began to say something, but Snape held up an adamant hand—suddenly the world's oldest traffic cop.

"No, do not contradict me. It is true. Go on, leave this house. Enjoy yourself in Spain while I sit in this hot, grease-smelling kitchen and wait to see if the Muggles and wizards once against start fighting each other. I can't stop you, no more than I can stop getting older a day at a time. You can leave and never come back."

He looked at Al fixedly, so fixedly that Al looked away from him.

"Down deep, I do not like you. I could never like you. You forced yourself on me. You are an uninvited guest. You made me open crypts which were perhaps better left shut, because I discovered that some of the corpses were buried alive and still had some breath left.

"You, yourself, have become enmeshed, but do I pity you because of that? Of course not. You made your bed. Should I pity you because you sleep badly in it?"

Al stared at him, but didn't reply.

"So, nothing could make me like you, but I have come to respect you a little bit. You are not a stupid boy, so do not insult both of our intelligence by making me explain this twice. We could obtain both our documents and burn them here in this kitchen. And yet, we would be no better off than we are now."

"I don't get you."

"Of course you don't, because you have never bothered to study the consequences of what you have set in motion. But understand me now, boy. How would I know that you haven't made a copy of your letter? Or two? Or three? There is the plain old copying machine down at the library, and of course you know how to cast a duplicating charm as well as anyone; it is taught in second year. With little effort at all, you could post my death warrant on street corners for a mile. Two miles of death warrants, even. How would I know you hadn't done such a thing?"

"I … well … I…" Al realized he was floundering and forced himself to close his mouth. His skin felt too tight. And for no reason at all he found himself remembering something which had happened when he was nine or so. He and George Leavenson had been goofing around in an old barn out in the farming country surrounding the three towns. He, Al, had been climbing the ladder into the hayloft when, with an abrupt snap, the rung under his feet had crunched into splinters. And as he was hanging on desperately with one hand, trying to prevent himself from falling, he happened to look up.

There on the roof was a wasp's nest, tucked into the juncture between two rafters. Numerous little denizens were buzzing around up there, less than two feet from Al's white, gasping face. The wasps above, a broken ladder below. And Al had begun to cry; he couldn't help it.

Eventually, George had found a rope and gotten him down, and when Al's feet had been finally on solid earth again, he had fainted.

Now he found himself remembering that trapped feeling, pinned between two inevitabilities. Snape had just outlined a piece of duplicity so simple that it had never even crossed his mind. His skin felt hotter, and he thought: _I will not cry!_

"And how would you know I hadn't made two copies for my safety deposit box, that I didn't bring one and leave the other behind?"

Trapped, Trapped like that time in the barn. He remembered the heart-wrenching terror, the buzz of the wasps overhead, the creaky, ready-to-fall-apart feel of the rungs under his hands. He felt sweat begin to break out on the nape of his neck and trickle down his back. Trapped, just like before, and who are you going to call for now?

"Even if we could find an impartial third party—something not at all likely—there would always be doubts. Always. The problem is insoluble, boy. Believe it."

Trapped. Trapped in the barn, and there's no way out of this one.

He felt the world go grey. Won't cry. Won't faint. He forced himself to come back.

Snape regarded him over the rim of his cup.

"Now I tell you two more things. First, if your part in this matter did come out, it is possible—no, likely—that nothing would happen to you at all. I frightened you with a Ministry holding cell of a juvenile detention centre once, but that was when I was afraid you would crack and tell everything. I don't really believe that would happen to you, not with your sainted father being who he is. They have their older son causing enough trouble already, no?

"But it might well ruin your life all the same. People are ready for scandals. They like it when their heroes and their heroes' children have feet of clay. They bottle up the juicy gossip like wine. And then there is the fact that, as the years pass, your culpability will grow. Your silence would be ever more damming. If it came out now, they would say, 'but he is just a child!' Not knowing, like I do, just what an old child you are. But what would they say, boy, if the truth about me, coupled with the fact that you knew about me as early as 2030, came out in, say, your seventh year? That would be quite bad, no? If it came out in university, disaster. And if it came out as a young man just starting in whatever business you choose as a career path, Armageddon. You understand this first thing?"

Al said nothing, but Snape seemed satisfied. He nodded. Still nodding, he said: "Second, I do not believe you have a letter at all."

Al stove to keep his face blank, but he was afraid his eyes had widened in shock. Snape was studying him, the expression on his face avid, and Al suddenly became aware with a cold realization that this man had interrogated hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. He was an expert. He felt as though his skull had turned transparent, and all his thoughts were flashing in large, neon letters that you didn't need Legilimency to see.

"I asked myself," Snape said, having another drink, "Whom does this boy run with? Who does this boy, this coldly controlled, self-sufficient boy, so trust with his loyalty? And I answer myself, no one at all."

Snape's eyes gleamed.

"I have studied you, and I know you. Many times I have calculated the odds, because I believe I have a pretty good understanding of your character. Not a complete understanding, because no human being can ever completely know another, but I think it is very good, nonetheless. I have calculated the odds and I believe I could take the risk. But I know so little of what you do and whom you see outside of this house, and I ask myself, Snape, are you willing to take the chance on being captured, perhaps killed, because you misjudged a boy? And I answer myself; no, I'm not quite ready to take that chance. Perhaps when I was younger, I would have. The odds are good odds, and the risk is small. But … you know it is interesting. The older one becomes, the less one has to lose in matters of death, and yet the more conservative one becomes."

He looked hard into Al's face.

"I have one more thing to say, and then you may go where you will, boy. What I have to say is that, while I doubt the existence of your letter, never doubt the existence of mine. The document I described to you exists. If I die today … tomorrow, everything will come out."

Al uttered a dazed little laugh. "Then there's nothing for me. Don't you see that?"

"But there is. As the years go by, your hold over me will grow less and less, because, as important as my life and liberty are to me, the less importance the MBO and other agencies will have in taking it away. People will move out of their positions. The memories of the war fade as veterans, the ones keeping the memories alive, begin to die off, or move on to other lands. No, they will lose interest in me, and your hold will weaken even as mine grows stronger.

"And eventually there will come a time when I decide what you know does not matter anymore. Then I will destroy the document."

"But so many things could happen to you in between! Accidents, disease—"

Snape shrugged. "What happens is not up to us. Shit happens, to put a blunt and crude spin on things."

Al looked at Snape for a long time—a very long time. There had to be flaws in Snape's argument, a way out. Had to be … A way out for both of them, or for Al. A way to cry off—oi, guys, I hurt my foot, let's stop now, okay? Pretty please?

The black depths of years ahead wavered behind his eyes and he saw a nightmarish image of a cartoon pussycat with an anvil wavering on a disintegrating thread over his head. Everywhere he went, everything he did—

By the time he graduated Hogwarts, Snape would be seventy-five. By the time he graduated university, he would be seventy-nine, and still he might not feel safe. If he went for his PhD Snape would be over eighty and still he might not feel enough time had passed.

"No," he said, his voice thick. "I can't take that. What you're saying … I just can't take that."

"My boy," Snape said, and Al heard with slow horror the slight emphasis he put on the first word, "my boy. You must. There is no choice."

Al stared at Snape, his tongue swelling in his mouth, his heart racing. Then he wheeled clumsily and blundered out of the house.

Snape watched all of this with no expression, and when the boy's thundering footsteps had faded—meaning he had mounted his bike—he let out a breath and lit a fresh cigarette.

There was, of course, no document, no safety deposit box. But the boy had believed. He had believed utterly. He was safe. It was over.

But it was not over.

That night, both of them dreamed of murder. Both of them woke in mingled terror and exhilaration. Al felt the now-familiar stickiness on his lower belly. Snape, too old for such things, put on the Death Eater uniform and lay down again. It was cheaply made and already beginning to unravel.

In Snape's dream he had finally reached the top of the hill. The gate, sensing his Dark Mark, rumbled open for him, and then shut behind him. Snape strutted back and forth in his uniform, the cap cocked at exactly the right, sneering angle, his boots shining, his mask bone white. His naked pursuers had thrown himself against the warded fence in wave after sizzling wave, and the high, porky smell of burning flesh permeated the air.

He had awakened in the bucolic town of Greaves with that scent still teasing him from the ether, and he wondered.

# # #

Two days before the remaining Potters were scheduled to fly to Spain with the Weasleys (Rose, Hugo, Ron and Luna), Al went back into the abandoned train yard. It was almost dusk, and on the motorway two hundred yards away, cars were showing their lights.

Although it was reasonably warm, Al was wearing a light windcheater. This was to hide the large butcher knife snugged into his belt. It was wrapped in an old tea towel. He had picked it up in the big department store in Raven's Glen, the one surrounded by seemingly miles of car park.

He went over to the old platform where he had sat before and looked under it. His mind was empty; it turned and turned on nothing at all, shades of black on black.

What he found under there was another hobo or possibly the same one; they all pretty much looked of a kind.

"Hey," Al said. "Hey. You want some money?"

The tramp turned his scaly head, blinking dumbly. He saw Al's wide, sunny grin and began to grin back. The butcher knife descended, all wicker-snicker and cold flash, into the dirty man's face. It caught on the skin of his cheek, turning his tentative grin into an insanely wide, bloody leer.

Then it was the knife that was making the grin; he was carving the dirty tramp like a Halloween pumpkin.

He crawled in under the platform in pursuit of the tramp. He stabbed the dirty pusbag thirty-seven times. He kept count. Thirty-seven. The tramp stopped trying to get away from Al after stroke three, stopped trying to scream after stroke four. And still the knife went up and down, up and down.

He tossed the knife into the river on the way home. His pants were blood-stained. A quick Scourgify spell in his room took care of that, though. The stains did not worry him.

He found the next day that he could barely lift his arm above shoulder level. He told his father that he must have sprained it throwing balls in the park. Harry Potter ruffled his son's hair and told him that it would probably improve in Spain. It did, too; by the time they all came home, tanned and reasonably happy, it was good as new.


	13. Chapter 13

13

It was July again.

Snape, dressed in one of his three suits, was standing at the bus stop in Raven's Glen, waiting for the last local to take him home. It was ten fifty-five PM. He had been to the cinema and enjoyed a light and frothy comedy. He had been in a fine mood ever since the morning post.

There was a card from the boy, postmark Murcia. There was a picture of an olive grove on the front, and on the back a few brief sentences:

_Dear Mr Craven,_

_Boy, this sure is some place. Dad rented a villa for the entire month, near the beach. We went fishing yesterday and Mum's catching up on her reading (ha ha). Tomorrow we're going up north to the mountains. I'll try not to fall off one!_

_Stay healthy,_

_Al_

Snape had smiled at the significance of that last. He smiled again, remembering, when a hand touched his elbow lightly.

"Mister?"

"Yes?" Snape turned, now on guard—muggers weren't unknown even out here in these impossibly bucolic towns—and winced at the aroma that assaulted him. It was a combination of beer, halitosis, old sweat layered on new sweat, unwashed hair and dirty clothes. It was a vagrant in old ancient trainers held together with dirty bands of sellotape, flannel pants, several layers of t-shirts and a torn and dirty brown coat that might possibly have been white once. The face of this denizen of the streets loomed above the motley costume, like the face of Job after a hard night's drinking and bemoaning his bad luck.

"Ya got an extra half-pound for the bus, mate? I gotta get up to London, got a job offertunity. I wudn't ask if it wadn't a big chance for me."

Snape had begun to frown, but then his smile reappeared.

"Is it really only a bus ride you wish?"

The vagrant frowned, not understanding.

"Let me offer you a proposition. Suppose you ride the bus home with me. I could offer you a bath, a drink, a meal, and a bed. All I ask in return is a little conversation. I am an old man, living alone. Company is sometimes very welcome."

The drunk's smile clarified as understanding came. Here was a well-to-do old queer with a taste for slumming.

"All by yaself?! Bitch, innit?"

Snape answered the broad, insincere grin with a polite smile. "I only ask that you sit away from me on the bus. You are rather fragrant."

"Maybe ya don't want me stinkin' up yer place then," the vagrant said, with sudden, tipsy dignity.

"Come. The bus will be here in a moment. Get off two stops after me and walk back. I will be on the corner of Edgehill Road. In the morning, I will see what I can spare. Perhaps two pounds."

"Maybe even five," the vagrant said brightly, his dignity, tipsy or otherwise, now forgotten.

"Perhaps, perhaps," Snape said, a faint edge of impatience in his voice. He could hear the diesel drone of the bus approaching down the high street. He pressed a bus coupon into the vagrant's grimy hand and walked off a few paces.

The bus pulled up and Snape got on, dropping his own fare in the box and sitting in the middle of the bus.

The vagrant stood frowning down at the coupon in his hand for a moment. He was still frowning at it when the old queer got on, and had turned away. At the last second he reversed and boarded, just as the bus doors began to close. He dropped the coupon in the box with the expression of a man betting on a long shot and wobbled passed the old queer without doing more than glancing at him. He sat in the back of the bus and dozed off for a while.

At the next stop, he got off, not sure if it was the right one or not and walked back to the corner of the road. Under the street light was the old queer, all right. He looked as though he was standing at attention, and briefly the vagrant felt a chill of apprehension, an urge to call off the whole thing.

"Good," the old queer said, taking his arm, the grip rather firm. "I'm glad you came. My house is just this way."

"Maybe even ten!" the vagrant said, allowing himself to be led.

"Maybe even ten," the old queer agreed, and then laughed. "Who knows?"

# # #

Before leaving for Spain, Harry had put an end to things with Lisa. She had, amazingly enough, been very understanding.

"I knew it couldn't last forever," she said, giving him a brave smile. "Even with the complications you are the best thing that has happened to me, Harry. You made me feel beautiful and loved. Like I was something other than the bitch queen prosecutor."

"You helped me more than you can realise, too," Harry told her. I honestly don't know what would've happened had you not stepped in."

They had kissed one last time and Lisa had gone home to her house and cried. She would not cry in front of Harry; it wouldn't accomplish anything. If he wanted to come back to her, she would let him, but it had to be his own choice, not because she guilt tripped him into it. And she would never turn him away.

In the third week of their vacation, Ron and Luna had taken the kids and gone off to explore the Mediterranean on a charter boat, leaving Ginny and Harry alone for a day. And finally, away from home and all its memories, they were able to make love successfully. What followed was a series of long conversations in which they discussed what they wanted in the relationship, how to proceed from where they were, and vows (personal not magical) that the past would not be brought up again. They were starting anew.

By the time they came home a week later, they were on a better footing with each other than ever before. Yet a dim part of Harry's mind wondered how long it could last. In his experience, life only put a rug under him in order to jerk it out later, in the most spectacular and violent way possible.

Lily finally recovered on the trip. She was not going to be the life of the party, but she was at least aware whom she was with and where and when she was. When asked where she had gone in her mind, she could only look puzzled. "I don't remember," she would say, before changing the subject. Her family, fearful of bringing on another relapse, did not press for details.

Lily in fact did not remember a whole lot of the past few months. The last clear memory she had was of James shouting downstairs and then there had been a light in her mind, a light where she could go, where all things would be safe. So she had gone into the light … and the next thing she remembered was being on a beach.

She did not fall back into that safe place within herself when she returned home. It was decided that she would be home schooled by Ginny, with the aid of tutors, rather than subject her to the rumours and possibly vicious bullyragging of the students at Hogwarts over the family's legal troubles. Al had reported that students were giving him a wide berth—girls especially—and asking him if their family's money was safe. The more sensitive and shy Lily could not handle that.

And so the last month of the summer of 2031 passed, peacefully and almost without incident.

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	14. Chapter 14

14

Al's fourth year arrived.

He came by to see Snape about a half dozen times between his return from Spain at the end of July 2031 and the beginning of July 2032, when James was due to come home. These visits were low-key and in no way unpleasant; the two of them found they could pass the time civilly enough. They spoke more in silences than in words, and their actual conversations would've put a Scotland Yard agent to sleep.

Al told Snape he was seeing a girl named Ariadne Greengrass off and on. He wasn't all that into her, but her mother Daphne was one of his mother's friends. The old man told Al that he had taken up latch hook rug making; it was supposed to be good for the arthritis. He showed him several pieces and Al dutifully admired them.

The boy had grown quite a bit, had he not? Well, two inches. Had Snape given up smoking? No, but he had cut down; they made him cough too much. How had his school work been? Very difficult and somewhat exciting; he had gotten all O's and E's and he had been designing a way to convert solar power into magical energy as an Arithmancy project, and was now thinking of majoring in anthropology instead of history once he got to university. Who was mowing Snape's lawn this year? Henry Sitchens from down the street. A good boy, but rather fat and slow.

During that year, Snape had put an end to three vagrants in his kitchen. He had been approached at the bus stop around the three towns fifteen or so times, and had made the bed/drink/meal offer a dozen times. He had been turned down twice, and three times the vagrant had absconded with his bus coupons to go somewhere else.

On warm days lately there had been a rather unpleasant smell drifting up from the cellar. Snape kept his doors and windows firmly shut on those days.

Al Potter had found a vagrant in a vacant lot not far from the train yard. This was in December, during the Christmas vacation. He had stood there, hands in pockets, looking at this dirty speck of humanity and trembling. He had returned to this lot five or six times over the next few weeks, always wearing the light jacket (or a heavier one if it threatened snow) to conceal the hammer in his belt. At last he had come upon the hobo again—that one or another, and who really gave a fuck—on the first day of March. He had started with the hammer end and at some point (he couldn't remember when; everything had been swimming in a red haze) he had switched to the claw end, obliterating the tramp's face.

For Severus Snape, the tramps were a half-cynical propitiation of gods which he finally recognised, or re-recognised, if you liked that better. And the tramps were fun; they made him feel young and alive. He began to feel like the years he had spent in Greaves before the boy had turned up on his doorstep with his wide green eyes and disarming, sunny grin were years in which he was growing old before his time. He had been just passed his mid-sixties when he finally moved permanently into this house. He felt much younger than that now.

The idea of propitiating gods would've surprised Al, but would probably have gained acceptance. After doing away with the first tramp under the train platform, Al had expected his nightmares to intensify—to perhaps drive him crazy. He had expected waves of terrible guilt, leading to either a tearful confession or the taking of his own life.

Instead, he had gone to Spain and enjoyed the best vacation of his life. His mother and father were almost back to normal and his sister had come out of her shell.

He had begun his fourth year last September feeling oddly renewed, as though a different person, one with a fresher outlook, had climbed into his Al Potter skin. Things that had not made much of an impression on him since earliest childhood—the quality of sunlight just after dawn; the sight of fish jumping in the river; watching people hurrying on a downtown street; or that moment just after sunset when the streetlights first come on—these things imprinted upon his memory in a series of bright cameos, in images so bright they seemed almost electroplated. He tasted life on his tongue, like the world's strongest Pepperup Potion.

After he had seen the tramp in the vacant lot, but before he killed him, the nightmares had begun again.

The most common one involved the hobo in the abandoned train yard. He would come home from school, a cheerful Hi, Minny-Ginny! on his lips. It died there as he advanced into the kitchen because there, in the raised breakfast nook would be the tramp in his puke-smelling shirt and pants. Blood ran across the shiny tile floor in dried rivulets; bloody handprints splattered across the natural mahogany cupboards.

Pinned to the notice board by the refrigerator was a note: _Al, gone to the shops, be back by five._ The hands on the clock over the stove read four-fifty, and the drunk still sprawled there like an oozing relic from a junk shop sub-cellar. There was blood everywhere, and Al would begin frantically trying to clean it up, scrubbing at every exposed surface and screaming at the tramp that he had to go, had to leave him the hell alone, and the tramp just lolled there and stayed dead, grinning his horrible bloody grin at the ceiling, and freshets of blood kept pouring out of the stab wounds in his dirty skin. Al would grab frantically for his wand, only for it to come crumbling apart in his fingers like a relic that was a million years old, until it was a useless fall of powder running through his fingers. So he would go to the little closet where regular cleaning implements were and grab the old mop, its head hanging off the handle like a clot of dead spider-web. He ran it over the floor, aware that he wasn't really getting the blood up but only diluting it, spreading it around, but unable to stop. And just as he heard the crack of his mother's returning Apparition in the back garden, he realised the tramp was Snape. He woke from these dreams gasping, heart racing, clutching double handfuls of the bedclothes.

After doing the tramp in the vacant lot, though, these dreams went away. He supposed that he might have to kill again and possibly more than once. But that was okay. Their usefulness as human creatures was almost gone, anyway, except for their usefulness to Al. And Al, like anybody, was just catering his own lifestyle to meet his needs as he got older. Really, he was like everybody else. If you wanted to make your way in the world, you had to do it by yourself.


	15. Chapter 15

15

During his fifth year, Al finally joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team and was scouted for the British Junior Quidditch League. He was named MVP and was told he had a bright future ahead, if he continued.

During the second quarter of that year, he won a Ministry-sponsored essay contest open to all O.W.L. students bound for Muggle University. His piece was called "A Wizard's Responsibility in a Changed World." During the Cricket season, he was awarded a plaque by Coach Hendrickson in June. Ginny had cried and Harry had strutted around the office for two weeks after his receipt of the award.

That year, Al killed four vagrants, stabbing two and bludgeoning two. He had taken to wearing two pairs of trousers on what he now acknowledged as hunting expeditions. He sometimes rode the busses that went around the three towns and environs, and sometimes he just walked through neighbourhoods, near the Salvation Army in Raven's Glen, or the church-run homeless shelter in Godric's Hollow, waiting to be panhandled. When a bum approached him, Al would tell him that he, Al, would give him money for a bottle of whisky, and they could share it. There was a place, he said, where they could go. Al resisted a strong urge to return to the vacant lot or the train yard. Revisiting the scene of a previous crime was most unwise.

During that year, Snape smoked sparingly, drank Highland Black whisky, and watched the telly. Al dropped by a few times, but their conversations were increasingly arid. They were growing apart. Snape turned seventy-three, and Al turned sixteen. He told Al that sixteen was the best age for a young man, forty for a middle-aged man, and seventy-three for an old man. Al had nodded politely. Snape had been quite drunk, and he cackled in a way that made Al distinctly uneasy.

Snape had dispatched two hobos during Al's academic year of 2032-33. The second had been livelier than he looked; even after Snape had gotten him falling-down drunk he had discovered new life in himself and had gotten up to stagger around the kitchen, the haft of a steak knife jutting out the back of his neck like a ship's rudder, gushing blood down his shirt and onto the floor. The hobo had found the front hall after thirty seconds or so and Snape, standing gape-mouthed with disbelief, had watched him lurch and weave toward the front door, still gushing. He had actually grasped the doorknob when Snape came back to himself, jerked the kitchen door open and grabbed a barbecue fork. He ran down the hall and rammed the fork in under the hobo's ribs, and the hobo had finally crumpled to the floor.

Snape had stood over him, panting, his old heart lurching in a rather frightening way, and he wondered dimly if he might be having a heart attack.

At last he had gotten hold of himself. There was a lot of blood to clean up.

That had been four months ago, and Snape hadn't made his usual offer at one of the bus stops. It frightened him, the way he had almost botched up the last one. But when he remembered how he had handled things at the last moment, pride rose in his heart. In the end, the hobo had not escaped, and that was the important thing.

# # #

James Potter, meanwhile, came back from prison much changed. He was quiet and kept himself locked in his room most of the time. It was as though the wider world was now a foreign place. He rose promptly at six in the morning and went to bed at nine in the evening. He rarely left the house, and kept himself to the back garden, or the library, or the cinema. He made no attempt to get in touch with his old friends, did not call any girls, and spoke with bland politeness to anyone who addressed him.

Even though the Ministry did not put most prisoners into Azkaban, the new prison was still no picnic. Every criminal convicted of a crime, short of murder, was sent there. James had not fared well in this environment. He had endured several beatings and now was very reluctant to draw any sort of attention to himself.

Harry and Ginny thought it was for the best.

Eventually, just as Al was starting his sixth year, James got a job working in a Muggle hotel, as the desk clerk. He seemed reasonably happy, and his parents did not push the issue.


	16. Chapter 16

16

Al continued his rise to athletic and academic excellence during his sixth year, once again being named MVP on the Quidditch team, this time as a Keeper. He won several academic awards and, by the time seventh year rolled around, he was reasonably sure he would get the position of Head Boy.

Al received his Apparition license the summer after his sixth year. Like almost every other kid, he began Apparating all over the house just to show he could, much to the somewhat irritated amusement of his family.

"Your uncles Fred and George used to do the same thing," Harry told him one day, after the crack of Al's sudden appearance caused him to startle and spill tea on his newspaper. "Slow down, son, before you splinch yourself."

Also during that summer, Al began work on a secret project. He kept the specifications and calculations under a double layer of password secured and encrypted files on his personal computer. If anyone found these…

The "Unforgivable" Killing Curse worked by bringing the magical and metaphysical manifestation of death to a living organism. The process of life was stopped, but everything else was left the same. This was why the recipients of the curse were left unmarked. And because this curse and the other three Unforgivable Curses left such a highly particular magical signature, they could be tracked. There was a surveillance net over the United Kingdom which watched specifically for all three curses, and which would sound an extremely loud and shrill alarm in Auror headquarters within half a second of it being cast.

Al's project, which he had undertaken for no on-top reason at all, was to design a different kind of Killing Curse. They had learned about Avada Kedavra in sixth year defence, and he had been singularly unimpressed. It didn't do anything interesting at all; the only thing it did was make them die painlessly. What use was that?

So that summer, after obtaining his license, Al started his own research. And by October of seventh year, he had cracked it. He had designed his own Killing Curse.

Its incantation was Muertacorozón, because he had taken a liking to the Spanish language. And it made the hearts of its victims explode; literally. When he tried it on rabbits and cut them open, the hearts ran out from between the rib cages like hot syrup. And he was delighted. Best of all, it did not register on the surveillance net.

Sometime in November, an odd impulse came over Al. He seemed to be firmly in control of it, which was comforting, but that such an impulse would strike him at all was somewhat troubling. He had made an arrangement with life. He had worked things out; everything was grand now. His life resembled his mother's bright and shiny kitchen, with everything in its place and a place for everything—or however that saying went. There were deep dark cupboards in this kitchen, where almost anything could be stored, but that was okay. Their doors could be shut, their contents hidden from view.

This new impulse reminded him of the dream in which he discovered the dead hobo, bleeding in his mother's clean, well-lighted place. It was as though, in this clean, well-organised, bright, a-place-for-everything-and-everything-in-its-place kitchen of his mind, something bloody and horrible lurked and shambled out of sight, just waiting for a place to die conspicuously…

On the northern outskirts of Godric's Hollow, the motorway took a dogleg around a small greenbelt. This greenbelt was often used for Boy Scout campouts and teenage lovers' parking spots. There was an embankment leading down to the bright eight lanes of traffic, and it was covered in old scrub and a few dead trees. During rush hour, when all eight lanes were jammed with people bound for Cardiff or further up the line to turn southeast for London, Al could pick a spot on that bank, behind a dead tree and he could easily…

He could what? Commit suicide? Destroy everything he'd worked for these last four years? Destroy his family's reputation for good? It was totally insane, stupid, not to be thought of.

Sure it was. But the impulse remained.

One Saturday, not long before the school leaving ceremony, Al found himself alone for the day. Harry, now head of the prosecutor's office after Lisa had been kicked upstairs to work just under Susan Bones, was off in London doing file clean up. Ginny was at the newspaper's offices working up the final details on a Quidditch League betting scandal. Lily, who had started seeing Scorpius Malfoy, was off with him somewhere, and James was still at his desk clerk's job at the hotel.

Al got behind the wheel of his father's new toy: a used Jaguar that his father had refurbished himself. He had received his driver's license that fall. He drove up to the greenbelt and parked, then strolled up there to the embankment. He picked up a very long stick off the ground and settled behind a dead tree. He rested the stick in the fork of a branch, aiming it perfectly down at the motorway no more than twenty yards away. His mouth was full of sour, electric spit and his palms were sweating.

_This is really stupid!_ His mind yammered. _Boy, this is so stupid it's unbelievable. It's perfectly obvious what you're pretending here, and you could get yourself arrested!_

It was Saturday morning and traffic was light. Al settled the end of the stick on the temple of a woman wearing a blue silk blouse (like the killing curse, it didn't matter where you hit them; they still died.) She was driving an old Honda, and the wind was making her blouse's rounded collar flutter through the open window.

"Poof," he whispered, pretending to fire his new curse as the car disappeared around the dogleg. He swallowed around a tongue that felt like a stuck-together mass of pennies.

Here came a man in a shiny sports utility vehicle. He had a scrubby brown beard and looked vaguely like pictures he'd seen of old Amos Diggory, his headmaster's father.

"You're … you're the dirty rat that shot my bruddah," he whispered, grinning a manic grin, and pretend-firing again. He had always loved that line from that old movie.

He dry-fired at five others, his head pounding a little more after each one as nothing happened. At last he threw the stick aside, rose and headed back up the slope, bending low to keep from being seen. He drove the Jaguar home. Went up to his room. Masturbated.


	17. Chapter 17

17

The tramp was wearing a ragged and falling apart Hawaiian shirt that looked almost surreal in the British West Country. He was also wearing twill work pants that were going out at the knees, revealing white, hairy skin and a number of peeling scabs. He raised the glass with the cartoon figures on it and polished off the knock of Highland Black at a single gulp.

"Phew, that hits the spot, mate. I don't mind sayin' so."

"I always enjoy a drink in the evening myself," Snape said from behind him, and then he rammed a butcher knife into the tramp's neck. There was the sound of briskly tearing gristle, like the sound of a drumstick being torn off a freshly roasted chicken. The glass fell out of the tramp's hand and rolled toward the edge of the table, its motion enhancing the illusion that the cartoon characters were dancing.

The tramp through his head back and tried to scream, emitting only a hideous whistling sound. His eyes widened, wwidened … and then his head thumped forward to lie on the dirty tablecloth.

Snape yanked the knife free—needing to use both hands—and crossed over to the kitchen sink. It was full of lemon scented dish soap and dirty supper dishes. He tossed the knife in, and it vanished through the layer of suds like a tiny broomstick disappearing into a cloud.

He crossed back over to the table and rested his hand on the dead tramp's shoulder while a spasm of coughing tore through him. There was a roll of kitchen towel in the middle of the table, and he grabbed a piece off and spat a wad of yellowish-brown phlegm into it. He had been smoking a bit much lately. He usually did, just before he made up his mind to do another one. He had been afraid after the mess he had made of the last one that it would be tempting fate to try again, but this one had gone smoothly. No problems at all.

Now, if he hurried, he would be able to watch the last half of his favourite medical drama before bed.

Smape went over, opened the cellar door and turned on the light. Then he crossed back to the sink, opened the cabinet door under it and pulled out a big rubbish bin liner. Crossing back over to the tramp, he saw that blood had pooled on the tablecloth, in the tramp's lap and had run over the chair and hilly, faded linoleum. No big deal; all of that would clean up.

He shook out the plastic bag. It rustled crisply in the kitchen. He grabbed a handful of the dirty hair and pulled the tramp's head back. It rolled with boneless ease until it was now looking at the ceiling, like a man waiting for a pre-haircut shampoo. The plastic bag went down over the tramp's head, over the shoulders and down to the elbows; as far as it would go. More plastic rustling sounds.

Snape pulled the tramp's old leather belt out and looped it around the bag above his elbows. He was humming to himself.

The tramp's scuffed and dirty shoes made a limp V as Snape seized the belt and began dragging him across to the cellar. He laid the body with its head lolling down onto the second stair level. Stepping around the body, Snape gave it a couple of healthy kicks. It rolled gracelessly down the stairs, its feet kicking up over its head as it gave an acrobatic roll and came to rest with a loud thunk on the dirt floor below. One dirty shoe flew off and landed by the furnace and Snape made a mental note to pick it up.

He climbed down the stairs, stepped around the body and headed over to his workbench. Here there was a shovel, a spade, and a rake, hung on the wall ina neat row. The smell down here wasn't all that great, but he could live with it. He limed the plus once a month (every three days after doing one of his vagrants) and he had gotten a big box fan to run upstairs to keep the smell from permeating the house on warm still days. _When a man dies, he wants you to know about it,_ Snape thought with one of his hard little grins.

He grabbed the spade and selected a spot in the far corner. The grave's dimensions were six feet long by four feet deep.

He had gotten to two feet deep when the first horrible pain struck him in the chest like a shotgun blast. He straightened up, eyes going wide and the spade tumbling out of his hand. The second pain struck, rolling down his arm, more intense than the first. It was as though a hand with sharp claws had seized all the blood vessles in there and gave them a smart yank. His knees buckled and he was afraid that he might go tumbling into the grave himself. He took a stagger step backward and fell with a plop onto the workbench. There was a stupidly surprised expression on his face—he could feel it—like one of those old silent movie comedians who had just been bopped by the swinging door or stepped in the cow patty. He put his head down and deep-breathed for about fifteen minutes until the very worst of the pain passed.

For the first time, he became coldly aware of all the horrors of old age, most of which he had been mercifully spared up till now. Death had come down here, into this dank, smelly cellar, and brushed him with the hem of its robe. Death had come, and it might yet be back, but Snape would not die down here; not if he could help it.

He got carefully to his feet, hands still crossed on his chest as though to hold the fragile machinery together. He staggered across the cellar. His right foot struck the tramp's leg and he almost fell down again. He uttered a small, helpless cry, a sound none of his former students would recognise in a million years. A fresh snarl of pain rolled down his left arm.

He looked at the stairs—the steep, steep stairs. Twelve of them. They looked as high as Mount Everest. The square of light that was the doorway was mockingly distant.

"One," Severus Snape gasped, crawling up to the stair-level. "Two … three … four."

It took him almost twenty minutes to reach the linoleum of the kitchen. Twice the pain had recurred, and both times Severus Snape waited with closed eyes to see if it was the end. He was fully aware that if it had come back on as strong as it had down by the grave, then he would likely die down here. But both times the pain had faded away to a dull throb again.

He crawled across to the kitchen table, avoiding the streaks and splatters of now-congealing blood. He got the bottle of Highland Black and had a couple of generous shits from it. Something which had been sinched tight in his chest seemed to loosen a little. Finally, after five minutes and another hit from the bottle, he was able to get to his feet and stagger, leaning against the wall, down the front hall. His phone sat on a little table halfway down.

# # #

It was quarter past nine in the pOtter household when the phone rang. Al was sitting crosslegged on the floor, leaning against the fireplace in a litter of cushions, studying for his potions fN.E.W.T. Harry was in at the desk in the corner, going over household balance sheets with a portable calculator in front of him and a mildly disbelieving expression on his face. Lily was out with old Scorp-the-Dork, as Al called him, James was upstairs in his room, and Ginny, who was closest to the phone, was curled up on the couch watching an old James Bond movie from their collection.

"Hello?" She listened. After a moment a slight frown touched her face and she held the handset out to Al. "It's Mr Craven … he sounds upset or excited about something."

"Really?" Al kept his face blank, but his heart leapt into his throat. He took the phone from Ginny. "Hi, Mr Craven."

Snape's voice was sharp, hoarse. "Come over right away, boy. I've had a heart attack. Quite a bad one, I think."

"Wow," Al said, trying to keep his thoughts going in a straight line through the fear, "that's pretty interesting, but it's late and I was studying—"

"I understand that you cannot talk, boy," Snape said, in that harsh, almost barking voice. "But there is a mess here. I cannot dial nine-nine-nine yet. I need help … and that means you need help."

"Well … if you put it that way…" Al's heart was now beating like a runner's and his hands were starting to sweat, but his face was calm as a pond on a summer's day. Hadn't he known all along that a night like this might come? Sure he had. Sure.

"Tell your parents I've had a letter," Snape barked. "An important letter. You understand?"

"Yeah, okay," Al responded, feeling his heart thundering in his ears.

"Now we see, boy. Now we see what you are made of."

"Sure," Al said, and hung up the phone.

"I'm going over to Mr Craven's for a while," Al said, going over to the coat rack and grabbing his lightweight windcheater. "Can I pick up anything for you guys at the shops?"

"Nothing for me, but a small package of fiscal responsibility for your mother," harry said, still bent over the calculator.

"Very funny," Ginny said. "Al, is Mr Craven—"

"What on earth did you go all the way down to London to Harrods for?" Harry interrupted.

"That knick-knack shelf upstairs, in the library. I told you that. Is Mr Craven okay, Al? He sounded a bit odd."

"There really are such things as knick-knack shelves? I thought those crazy women mystery writers made them up so there'd be a place for the killer to find a blunt instrument."

"Harry, can I get a word in edgewise?"

"Sure. But a knick-knack shelf?"

"He's okay, I guess," Al said, now sitting down to put his shoes on. "He has relatives on the west coast of America and he got a letter from them today, but his eyes aren't good enough for him to read it."

"Well isn't that good. Go on over there and ease the man's mind."

"I thought he had someone else to read to him," Ginny said. "A new boy."

"He does," Al said, suddenly hating his mother, hating the half-informed intuition swimming in her eyes. "Maybe he couldn't get ahold of him, or it was too late for him to come over."

"Oh, okay then. Go on. But be careful."

"I will. You don't need anything at the store?"

"Nope. How's your studying for that Arithmancy going?"

"It's potions. Not bad. I was actually just getting ready to call it a night." This was a rather large lie, in fact.

"You want to take the Jaguar?" Harry asked.

"No, I'll ride my bike." He wanted the extra few minutes to collect his thoughts and emotions—to try at least. And in his present state, he would probably drive the Jaguar straight into a telephone pole.

"Strap your reflector pad to your knee and tell Mr Craven hello for us," Ginny said.

"I will. See you guys in a bit."

That doubt was still in his mother's eyes, but less evident now. He blew her a kiss and headed out to the carport where his bike—a shiny twenty speed Italian bike now—was parked. His heart was still racing, and he suddenly felt the mad urge to grab his wand, use his new curse on both of his parents, and then go to that slope overlooking the motorway. He would fire and fire and fire, only saving back the last one for himself. No more worries about Snape, no more bad dreams, no more waiting for the axe to fall.

Then reason reasserted itself and he strapped his reflector pad on his knee as instructed and pedaled off down the street, his longish black hair blowing back from his brow.

# # #

"Holy fuck!" Al almost screamed.

He was standing in the doorway to Snape's kitchen. His wide, unbelieving eyes jerked from the blood-spattered table, to the blood-spattered floor, to the trail of blood leading to the cellar. Snape was sitting at the table, head drooping between splayed elbows, his china cup of whisky in front of him, but Al wasn't paying any attention to him.

"Where are you bleeding," he shouted, at last getting his frozen feet to move. It felt like he'd been standing there for a thousand years, staring at the blood. This is the end, he was thinking, this is the absolute end of everything. All the moves and countermoves had been for nothing. Still, he was careful not to step in any of the splatters and streaks on the floor. "I thought you said you had a god damn heart attack!"

"It isn't my blood," Snape muttered to the table.

Al stopped. "What?"

"Go downstairs. You will see what needs to be done."

"What the hell is going on?" Al said. A sudden terrible idea had come into his head.

"Don't waste our time, boy. I believe you have had first-hand experience with such matters as the one in my cellar."

Al stared at him, unbelieving, then he went down the stairs two by two.

There was only a feeble hundred watt bulb down here, and At first he thought that Snape had thrown a bag of garbage down the stairs. Then he saw the pants legs and the dirty hands held at the sides by the cinched belt.

"Holy fuck," he repeated, but this time in a weak, thin whisper. He pressed the back of his hands against his lips, which felt as dry as ancient sandpaper. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he reopened them, he felt under marginal control at last.

Al got moving.

He saw the handle of the spade protruding from the open hole and realised at once what Snape had been up to when his old ticker blew a rod. At once he became aware of the cellar's aroma—a fetis smell like long rotten tomatoes—and he felt his gorge rise. He had smelled it before, of course, but upstairs it was fainter … and he hadn't been here too often over the past couple of years. A series of choked gagging sounds escaped from behind the hand he clamped over his nose and mouth as he suddenly realised exactly what that smell must be.

Finally, the worst of the nausea passed. He grabbed his wand and levitated the derelict into the grave, not bothering to let him down gently. He stood at the edge, looking down. Filthy, tattered workpants. Scab-encrusted hands with ragged fingernails. It was a tramp, all right. The irony was funny. So funny a person could scream with laughter.

He ran back upstairs.

"How are you?" he asked Snape.

"I'll be all right. Have you taken care of it?"

"I'm doing it, okay?"

"Be quick. There's still up here."

"I'd like to find some manticores and feed you to them," Al said, and went back downstairs without waiting for a response.

He used his wand to put the dirt back in the grave. He was in the middle of sweeping it in a wide arc when he stopped, looking down into the hole. The derelict's legs poked up out of the loose earth, one old trainer and a filthy athletic sock that might've been white around the time Thatcher was prime minister. It—

One trainer? One?

Al half-ran back around the work bench and glanced around, his eyes wide. A headache was pounding against his temples, a giant (Hagrid maybe) hammering nails in his skull. Finally he spotted the shoe, lurking underneath an old shelf. He grabbed it and threw it in the hole, then used his wand to finish covering everything up. He grabbed the rake and ran it over the dirt, back and forth. It didn't do a whole lot of good; without decent camouflage, a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in pretty much always looks like a hole that has been recently dug and then filled in, even with magic. And he wasn't wel-versed on earthmoving spells.

Stil, it would have to do. Nobody would have any reason to come down here, would they? He and Snape would certainly have to hope not.

Al ran back upstairs. He was starting to pant, starting to feel like things were getting away from him again.

Snape's elbows had spread and his head sagged down to the table. His breathing was laboured and his lips had gone a shiny purple colour.

"Snape!" Al shouted. "Don't you dare die on me now, you old fuck!" The headache buzzed and snarled, and his mouth was filled with a taste of adrenaline and hot fear.

"Keep your voice down, Snape said without opening his eyes. "You'll have everyone on the street over here."

"I need cleaners. Wheres your supplies—lyesol, bleach, stuff like that. And rags. I need rags." In the extremity of his fear and stress, Al forgot all about using cleaning spells.

"All of that is under the sink," Snape muttered.

Snape watched the boy scrubbing at the blood. First the puddles on the floor, then the streaks on the chair the derelict had been sitting in. The boy was biting compulsively at his lips, almost champing at them, like a horse at a bit.

"There is a box of old rags under the stairs. Put those in with them, down at the bottom," Snape said. "And don't forget to wash your hands."

"I don't need your advice," Al snapped. "You got me into this."

"Did I? I must say you took hold rather well," Snape said, and for just a moment all the old mockery was back in his voice. Then a bitter grimace twisted his face into a new shape. "Hurry, now."

Al took care of the rags and came back up the stairs. He looked back down, his face nervous, before finally closing the cellar door and heading over to the sink. He washed his hands in the hottest water he could tolerate. His hands plunged into the suds … and came back up holding the butcher knife.

"I'd like to cut your throat with this fucking thing," Al said, his voice grim.

"Yes. And then feed me to the manticores. I have no doubt of it."

Al rinsed and put away the knife, followed by the rest of the dishes. He dried his hands and glanced at the clock over the stove and saw that it was twenty minutes after ten.

Walking down the hallway, he stood in front of the phone, looking at it thoughtfully. The idea that he had forgotten something—something as potentially important as the derelict's missing shoe—nagged at him. What? He didn't know. He could get it if if it wasn't for this headache. This triple damned headache. It wasn't like him to forget things, and it was scary.

He dialed 999, and a voice picked up after a single ring.

"This is nine-nine-nine emergency. Do you have a medical or police problem?"

"My name is Alvin Potter. I'm at 963 Edgehill Road, in Greaves. I need an ambulance."

"What's the problem, son?"

"It's my friend, Mr S—"

He bit down on his lip so hard it bled into his mouth, and for a moment he was lost, lost in the pulses of pain from his head.

Snape. He had almost given this anonymous fuckwit on the other end of the line Snape's real name.

"Calm down, son," the voice said. "Calm down and take it slow and you'll be fine."

"My friend Mr Craven," Al said. "I think he's had a heart attack."

"His symptoms?"

Al began to give them, but the voice had heard enough as soon as he mentioned the pain migrating to the left arm. It advised Al that an ambulance would arrive in twenty minutes or so, depending on traffic. Al said that was fine and hung up, and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes.

"Did you get it?" came Snape's weak voice from the kitchen.

"Yes!" Al screamed. "I got it! Yes god damn it yes! Yes yes yes! Just shut up!"

He pressed his hands even harder against his eyes. Bright coruscations of senseless light burst behind his eyelids. Get hold of yourself, Al old pal. Get hold of yourself … get easy … stay cool.

He opened his eyes and picked up the phone again. Now it was time for the hard part. Now it was time to call home.

"Hello?" Ginny's soft, come-hither-thou-sexy-stranger voice in his ear. For just a moment Al saw himself shoving his wand against her nose and firing off his curse into the flow of blood. Then he got hold of himself.

"It's Al, Mummy. Put Dad on, quick."

He never called her Mummy anymore. He knew she would get that signal quicker than anything else and she did. "What's the matter, Al?"

"Let me talk to him!" Al allowed a ragged note of panic to enter into his voice. Not hard at all.

"But what—"

The phone clattered in his ear; he heard his mother saying something, and then his father came on.

"Al? What's happening, son?"

"It's Mr Craven, Daddy. He's had a heart attack or something. Pretty bad one."

"Merlin!" Harry's voiced moved away from the phone, presumably repeating the information to Ginny. Then he was back. "He's still alive? As far as you know?"

"Yes. He's alive and conscious."

"Thank heaven for that. Call an ambulance."

"Already did, just before calling you."

"Nine-nine-nine?"

"Yeah."

"Good boy. How bad is he, do you know?"

"Well, I don't know. The ambulance will be here soon but … I'm kinda scared anyway. Can you come over and wait with me?"

"No problem, son. Give me five minutes. I'll bring the Jaguar."

"Thanks, Dad."

Al could hear his mother start to say something else, but before he could get it his father had hung up the connection. Al hung up too.

His father couldn't Apparate over here, never having been to Snape's house before, so that bought him a little time. Time to remember what had been forgotten, to do something that had been left undone.

Or was there anything? Had he in fact remembered everything, and the rising sense of urgency to remember something only just nerves?

God, he wished he hadn't had to call over there. But it was the natural thing to do, wasn't it? Sure it was. Was there some other natural thing that he hadn't done? Something like—?

"OH you shite for brains!" he suddenly exclaimed, and tore down the hall back into the kitchen.

Snape was lying with his head on his arms, his eyes half open, sluggish looking. He looked almost dead. Al went over and shook him roughly.

"Snape!" he cried. "Wake up, Snape, you stinking old bastard!"

"What? Is it the ambulance?"

"The letter! My father's coming over … he'll be here any time … where's the fucking letter!"

"What … what letter?"

"You told me to tell them you got an important letter." I told them…" his heart sank. "I told them It came from overseas … from America." Al sighed and ran his hands through his hair.

"A letter," Snape said, raising his head a little. His seamed cheeks were now parchment yellow, his lips an unhealthy shade of blue. "From John, I think. John Kennth. Dear … dear John."

Al glanced at his watch. Two minutes had passed since he had hung up the phone. His father couldn't make it here in five minutes, but he could do it damn fast in the Jaguar. Fast. That was the problem. Everything was just going too fast. And there was still something wrong here; he could feel it, niggling away like an itch you can't quite reach on your back.

"Yes, okay. You got this letter and I was reading it to you and you got excited and had this heart attack. Good. So where is it?"

Snape looked at him, a maddening blank expression on his face.

"The letter! Where the hell is it?"

"What … what letter?" Snape asked, his voice sounding vacant, and Al resisted mightily the urge to strangle the sodden old monster.

"The letter from John what's-his-face! The one I was reading to you! Where is it?"

They both looked at the table, as if expecting the letter to be magicked there. In theory you could do it, but all you could conjure was paper; you couldn't conjure paper with writing on it.

"Upstairs," Snape said finally. "Look in my dresser's third drawer. There is a lockbox there. You will have to break it open since I lost the key a long time ago. There are some very old letters from a friend of mine, with American postmarks."

Al whirled and thundered out of the kitchen without replying. The old fuck was a step ahead, even with a heart attack.

Al paused in the hallway, looking out the front window to see if his father was pulling up even now. He wasn't, but a glance at his watch told him how tight things were getting; it had been five minutes now. He ran up the stairs three at a time and burst into Snape's bedroom. He had never been up here—hadn't even been curious—and he paused only half a second to glance around.

The room was furnished in what his father liked to call consignment shop modern. He fell on his knees in front of the battered dresser and yanked the third drawer open. It came crookedly out of it's slot and squealed to a stop.

"God damn you," he hissed at it. His face was white, except for the patch of dark blood burning in each cheek. His green eyes were hard and opaque. "God-damn-you-come-out!"

He gave it another yank, pulling so hard that the whole dresser wobbled and almost fell on him. The drawer came out in his lap, Snape's underwear and handkerchiefs falling in a white blizzard around him. He pawed rapidly through the litter until he came up with a box roughly the size of a cigar box.

He pulled his wand and tapped it, muttering the unlocking charm. Nothing happened. Snape must have charmed this box a long time ago.

"Fuck," he muttered. Nothing was free tonight.

He stuffed the litter of clothes back into the drawer, not bothering to close it this time. Holding the box in one hand, he got up and went over to Snape's bed. Six minutes now, by his watch. Sweat ran freely down his face like tears.

The bed was the type with the footboard and posts. Al brought the lock of the box down on the post, grinning at the vibration that sent shocks of pain through his hands, wrists and elbows. It remained locked. One more time, even harder, ignoring the pain. Still nothing, except a piece of wood went flying off the post. The lock was dented, but still firmly shut.

Al uttered a wild shriek of laughter. He went around to the other end of the bed and raised the box over his head, like an old time woodsmen, and brought the lock down with all his force on the post. This time the lock splintered.

As he flipped the lid up, headlights splashed across Snape's bedroom window. His father was here. Al recognised the Jaguar's distinctive purr.

Al pawed wildly through the box. A passport wallet. An old billfold. Several ID cards. A photo of a woman wearing a fur-lined collar and nothing else. And finally, down at the bottom, several letters in American stamped envelopes.

Al grabbed one of these just as the sound of the engine cut off. He raced for the doorway, and just as he heard the rachet of the emergency brake out front, he realised that the box was still sitting on Snape's bed.

He raced around and grabbed the box. Vaguely, he heard himself moaning. Out front, the Jaguar's door opened and shut. He threw the box into the open dresser drawer. He kicked it, and it slid into its slot neatly. Al gaped at it for a moment, and then he ran for the stairs.

Outside, there was the rapid patter of his father's feet on the walk. Al leapt over the bannister to land catlike on the hall carpet and ran for the kitchen.

A hammering on the door. "Al! It's me!"

There was the sound of an ambuleance siren closing in, also. Snape had drifted into soupy semi-consciousness again.

"Coming, Dad!"

Al threw the envelope and letter onto the table and ran for the front door to let his father in.

"Where is he?" Harry Potter asked, shouldering past Al. "I would've been here faster but I couldn't find the damn keys."

"In the kitchen."

"You did everything just right," Harry said, hugging Al in a rough, almost embarrassed way.

"I just hope I remembered everything," Al said modestly, and followed his father into the kitchen.

In the ensuing rush to get Snape out of the house, the letter was almost completely ignored. Harry picked it up and glanced at it for only half a second before tossing it back down, and the ambulance attendants didn't notice it at all.

They followed the ambulance to the Raven's Glen hospital, where Al's explanation was also accepted without question by the doctor attending Snape's case. Mr Craven, after all, was in his upper seventies, and his habbits were not the best. The doctor offered brusque commendation for Al's quick thinking. Al thanked him wanly and asked his father if they could go home.

On the way home, Harry once again told his son how proud of him he was. Al barely heard him. He was thinking about his curse again.


	18. Chapter 18

18

That was the same day Reginald Cattermole broke his back.

He had not intended to break his back; all he had wanted to do was nail up the falling down shingles on the windward side of his house. Breaking his back had been the farthest thing from his mind; he had had enough grief in his life already, please and thank you. His first wife, Mary, had died at the age of thirty-one, along with his son and daughter. His brother Herbert had died in a stupid car accident near Euro Disney in 2018. Reggie himself was nearing sixty-three, afflicted with a case of rheumatoid arthritis that was worsening early and fast. He also suffered from migraine headaches and a huge wart that kept popping up on the end of his nose, no matter how often the doctor burned it off. That arrogant little wanker next door, Frank Castles, had started calling him "Reggie the Rhino." Reggie had wondered grumpily to Constance, his second wife, how Castles would like it if he started calling him "Castles the Carbuncle."

"Stop that, Reggie," Connie had admonished him. "You can't take a joke; you never could take a joke! Sometimes, I wonder how I could've married a man with absolutely no sense of humour. We go to York," Connie had said to the empty kitchen, addressing an apparently invisible horde of spectators, "We see Eddy Izzard and Reggie doesn't laugh once!"

Aside from arthritis, migraines and terminal warts, Reggie also had Constance, god love her, who had turned into something of a nag over the past five years, ever since her hysterectomy. So yes, he had plenty of problems without adding a broken back into the mix.

"Reggie!" Connie cried, coming to the back door wearing an apron and clutching a dish towel. "Reggie, you come down off that ladder right now!"

"What?" He twisted his head around so he could see her. He was on his aluminium stepladder at the south side of the house above the garage. He was almost at the top of the ladder. There was a bright purple sticker on this step which said: DANGER! BALANCE MAY SHIFT WITHOUT WARNING ABOVE THIS STEP! The ground under the feet of the ladder was somewhat uneven, and the ladder wobbled when he moved. He was wearing his big workman's apron, one pocket loaded with nails and the other with industrial staples. His neck ached with the unlovely prelude to one of his migraines. He was out of temper. "What did you say?!"

"Come down off that ladder, I said, before you break your back!"

"I'm almost finished."

"You're rocking on that ladder like you were on a boat, Reggie. Come down!"

"I'll come down when I'm done!" he said angrily. "Leave me alone!"

"You'll fall and break your back," she repeated, with the air of a woman giving up on a hopeless mental case, and went back into the house again.

Ten minutes later, as Reggie was hammering the last nail into the last shingle, tipped back nearly to the point of overbalancing, he heard a feline yowl followed by the rapid clickety-clack of tricycle wheels.

"What in God's name—?"

He looked over his shoulder and the ladder rocked alarmingly. Their cat, Tinkerbell, was running around the garage, her fur raised into hackles and her green eyes flaring. In hot pursuit, the Castles' grandchild, Omri, was on his tricycle, grinning a big four-year-old grin.

"Watch out, you dumb cat!" Reggie shouted. The cat, apparently not at all superstitious, ran under the ladder. A moment later, the boy followed, bumping the ladder with his back tricycle wheel. The ladder tipped, and Reggie tipped with it, uttering a howl of dismay as he fell in a hail of nails and staples.

He landed half on and half off the concrete driveway in a litter of the stuff from his pockets. A gigantic, bright agony flared in his back. He did not so much hear his spine snap as he felt it happen. Then everything went grey for a little while.

When he came back to the world, he was still halfway onto the driveway. Connie was kneeling over him, weeping. Castles from next door was there, his face as white as paper. The trike-riding boy was nowhere to be seen.

"I told you!" Connie babbled through her tears. "I told you to come down off that ladder! Now look at this! Just look!"

Reggie found he had absolutely no desire to look. A flaring band of horrible agony was cinched around his middle like a belt of nails, but that wasn't the worst of it. Below that belt he could feel nothing—nothing at all.

"I'll call the ambulance," Castles said, and ran off for his house.

"Connie," Reggie whispered. He wet his lips.

"What," she sniffled. "What, Reggie." A tear splashed on his cheek. It was somewhat touching, he supposed, but it made him flinch, and flinching only made the pain worse.

"Connie, I also have one of my migraines."

"My poor darling! But I told you—"

"I have my migraine because the damn Castles' television was on all night with those infernal cartoons and kept me awake. Today his grandchild chases my cat and I think my back is broken."

Connie shrieked. It made Reggie's head vibrate. He wanted to say something else, but just then the world swam away from him again.

They took him to Raven's Glen and his doctor told him, around the same time that he normally would've been sitting down to one of Connie's biological experiments masquerading as suppers, that he would never walk again. They put him in a big bulky body cast. Blood and urine samples had been taken, and Dr Carter-Smythe tapped his knee with his little rubber hammer. There was no reflexive jerk in return. And at every turn there was Connie, weeping into a succession of little lace snot-rags that she always seemed to have with her in case there was need for a good crying jag. She was a woman who would've been right at home married to Job, Reggie sometimes thought cynically.

She had called her mother and she would be there soon ("That's nice, Connie"—although, if there was anyone in this big old world that Reggie honestly loathed, it was Connie's mother.) She had called the Vicar and he would be there soon, too ("That's nice, Connie"—although he hadn't set foot inside the local church in better than six years and couldn't even remember the Vicar's name.) She had called his boss and, while he wouldn't be there soon, he sent his deepest condolences and sympathies ("That's nice, Connie"—although, if there was anyone in a class with Connie's mother, it was that cigar-chewing, garlic-breathing arsehole Broderick Mansfield.)

At last, they gave him a little blue tranquiliser and took Connie away, and Reggie floated away without a care in the world.

When he awoke—regained consciousness, more like—it was almost dawn and the hospital was about as quiet as Reggie supposed it ever got. He felt very calm, almost serene; his body felt weightless and almost pain-free. His bed had been surrounded by a contraption like a squirrel cage, made up of guywires, pulleys and chains ... Very inquisitorial. His legs had been attached by thin cables to this gadget. Something appeared to be supporting his back from underneath, too, but he couldn't really tell; all he had was the angle of his vision to go by.

_Others have it worse,_ he thought to himself. Others have it much worse. In Northern Ireland, they put bombs in Launderettes to kill women and children whose only crime was to come to wash clothes. So yes, others have it worse. This is not to say that this is good, but still…

He lifted his hand with some effort—there was pain somewhere in his body, but it was faint, very faint—and made a weak fist. There: Nothing wrong with his hands. Or with his arms, either. So he was dead from the waist down, big deal. There were people in the world paralysed from the neck down, people dying of cancer, syphilis, Hanson's Disease, flesh-eating bacteria. Somewhere in the world right now, there might be people walking down the steps to get on a subway train that was going to crash. So no, this sure wasn't good, but there were worse things in the world.

And there had been much worse things in the world, once upon a time. He raised his left arm slowly. It seemed to float, disconnected in front of his eyes. A scrawny old man's arm with deteriorating muscles. He was wearing a hospital gown, but it had short sleeves, and he was able to see the long, faded scar on the inside of his forearm: the remnants of his wand, when they burned the magic out of him. Worse things, yes … worse things than falling off a small town stepladder and breaking your back and being taken to a nice, clean, sterile metropolitan hospital, where they would give you a little blue pill to help send your troubles away.

There were the showers, those were most definitely worse. His first wife, Mary, had died in one of their filthy showers. Courtesy of a potion he had heard was code-named Archangel. There were the long trenches that became graves, the trenches they had to dig by hand. He could still see men, women and children lined up along these gaping maws in the earth, could still hear the shouted Killing Curses and the indescribable thud of bodies falling into the wet ground.

There were the crematoriums. Those were worse, too, and he could still smell the high, sweet smell of burning Muggle-borns and squibs on rainy afternoons, burning, burning, like torches nobody could see. He could see the horror-struck faces of his friends and relatives, flickering and disappearing, faces that seemed to melt away before the eye—thin, thinner, thinnest. Snuffed out like candles in the wind. Where did they go? Heaven? Hell? Nowhere at all?

Who knew?

Yes, there were worse things than breaking your back … he had no doubt of it.

Reggie was not at all sure there was a god, or any sort of higher power. What kind of higher power would have allowed such things in the world? What kind of god would have allowed him to break his back and become paralysed for life after having watched his entire family save one, his wife and his son and daughter die? No god at all, that was who.

Reggie Cattermole turned his head and stared at the wall. A slow burning tear traced its way down his cheek. Outside his room, a nurse squeaked by on crepe-soled shoes; a bell rang softly.

There was movement in his room—a rustle of starched bedclothes.

He turned his head carefully, away from the door. There was a man in the other bed. The two of them were separated by a nightstand with a pitcher of water and two call buttons on it. He was not surrounded by an inquisitorial torture device like Reggie was, but his face was parchment yellow; his hair was dry and lifeless. His eyelids had a bruised, transparent look. In his nose Reggie saw the burst veins of a lifelong drinker. The man looked even older and sicker than Reggie felt.

Reggie looked away … and then looked back. As the sunlight grew stronger and the hospital began to rouse from its light doze, Reggie became certain that he knew his roommate from somewhere. Could that be, though? The man looked to be somewhere between seventy-five and eighty, and Reggie didn't know anyone quite that old-except for Connie's mother, a horror whom Reggie sometimes thought was older than the Sphinx, which the woman strongly resembled.

Maybe he knew the old man from somewhere in his past, before he moved out to the West Country. Maybe. Why did it matter though? Come to that, why had his memories of the camps, of Brecon, come back to him tonight of all night's, thirty years after those dark times had ended? Why had they come back when he tried—and usually succeeded—in keeping those things buried?

Reggie felt a sudden rash of gooseflesh, as if he had stumbled into some mental haunted house, where old bloody ghosts walked and bodies lay unquiet. It was quite ridiculous to think of such things in this clean, well-lighted hospital. Quite ridiculous.

He looked away from the old man, and after a while, he felt sleepy again.

_It's only a trick of your mind, only a trick making you think you know the old buzzard in the next bed,_ he told himself. _It's only your mind, amusing you, the way it used to try and amuse you in—_

No, he wouldn't think of that. He would not allow himself to think of that.

As he began to drift gently down into sleep again, he thought of the boasting he used to do to Mary. Never to Connie; it did not pay to boast to Connie, who was not like Mary. Mary, who used to smile sweetly at his harmless puffing and crowing. "I never forget a face," he had once proclaimed. Here was his chance to prove it. If he really had been acquainted with the man in the other bed, he would try and remember when, and where.

Drifting back and forth across the threshold of sleep, Reggie thought: _Perhaps I knew him in the camps._

That would be ironic indeed. What they called a "Jest from God."

What god? Reggie Cattermole asked himself again. And then he slept.


	19. Chapter 19

19

Al finished second of his class, quite possibly because of the poor grade he received on his potions N.E.W.T. It had dragged his final grade in the class to an eighty-nine—a point below and O minus average.

Two weeks after school finished, the Potters (Al and his parents) went to visit Mr Craven in the hospital. Al sat through fifteen agonizing minutes of "thank you's" and "how do you feels" before being granted a reprieve.

"Pardon me," said the old man in the next bed, sounding apologetic. He was in a huge body cast and his legs were over his head, held up by a series of pulleys and wires. "My name is Reginald Cattermole. I broke my back."

"That's too bad," Al said gravely.

"Too bad, he says. This boy has the gift of understatement!"

Al started to apologise, but Cattermole raised his hand weakly, smiling a little. His face was tired and pale, the face of any old man in the hospital facing a life of sweeping change ahead—few of them for the better. He and Snape were alike in that way, Al thought.

"No matter," Cattermole said. "No need to answer a rude comment. Should I inflict my problems on you?"

"'No man is an island, entire of itself'—" Al began, and Cattermole laughed.

"Donne, he quotes at me! A smart kid! Your friend there—is he very bad off?"

"Well, they say he's doing fairly well, considering his age. He's seventy-six."

"That old!" Cattermole exclaimed. "He doesn't say much, you know. But from his accent, I don't think he's from around here."

"No. He grew up in Yorkshire someplace."

"Well, you're a good kid to take your time to come visit an old man in the hospital. Two old men, counting me."

Al gave a modest smile.

"Well, I am tired now. I think I'll go to sleep. Thanks for talking with me, son."

"I hope you feel better soon," Al said.

Reggie nodded, smiled, and closed his eyes; a moment later he was snoring gently.

Al went back over to Snape's bed, where his parents were just getting ready to leave. They wished him a speedy recovery and departed, Ginny back home, Harry up to his office and Al to play some cricket in the park.

Al came back to the hospital alone two days after the family visit. Reginald Cattermole, buried in his giant body cast, was sound asleep in the other bed.

"You did well," Snape said quietly. "Did you go back to the house later?"

"Yeah. I destroyed that letter. I didn't think anybody was too interested in it, but…" Al shrugged, unable to tell Snape that he had become almost superstitious about that letter. Sure that somebody would drop by the house who would read it and recognise references that were thirty years out of date and then begin asking questions.

"Next time, bring me something to drink. I find I don't really miss the cigarettes much but—"

"I won't be back again," Al said, his voice flat. "We're done. Quits."

"Quits." Snape folded his hands on his chest and smiled. It was not a gentle smile, but probably the closest he could manage. "I thought that was going to happen anyway. They tell me that, if all goes well, I'm getting out of this graveyard next week, after I have a bypass surgery. I ask the doctor how long I have left and he just laughs. I suspect that means less than five years, but probably no more than two. Still, I may have a few surprises in store for them, yet."

Al did not respond.

""But between you and me, boy, I have pretty much given up seeing the decade turn."

"I want to ask you about something," Al said, scooting his chair closer and dropping his voice. "That's why I came in today. I want to ask you about something you said once."

"So ask."

Al lowered his voice even more. "That vagrant. You said you thought I had personal experience. What did you mean by that?"

Snape's smile widened a bit. "I read the newspapers, boy. Not in the same way young people do, however. Down in South America, buzzards are known to gather on the edge of airport runways when the crosswinds are treacherous, did you know that? That is how an old man reads the paper.

"A month ago there was an article in the local paper. Not on the front page—nobody cares enough about tramps and alcoholics to put them on the front page—but in the feature section. 'Is someone stalking the local down-and-outs?' That is what it was called. Yellow, cheap journalism that properly belonged in one of those scandal sheets."

Al's fists were clenched, hiding his chewed fingernails. He never read the Sunday papers, having better things to do with this time. He had, of course, checked them daily after each of his little adventures, but none of his tramps ever made it beyond page three. The idea that someone had been making connections behind his back infuriated him.

"The story mentioned several extremely brutal murders. Stabbings … Bludgeoning…. 'Subhuman brutality' was how the writer put it, but you know journalists. He admits of course that such there is a high rate of death among those people living beneath the strata of society, and that not all of them die as a result of their own bad habits. There are frequent murders, but usually they are committed by the indigent compatriots of the victim, and the murders are usually committed over nothing more significant than a penny card game, or a bottle of cheap wine.

"There has also been a high disappearance rate among these so-called down-and-outs over the past few years. Of course, this writer admits, these people are nothing more than modern-day hobos. They come and go. But to disappear without collecting dole checks? Could some of these be victims of this mysterious tramp killer?" Pah."

Snape waved his hand, as if to dismiss such errant irresponsibility.

"But this is no more than yellow, cheap reporting, as I say. Nothing but titillation to be served up over Sunday tea. Such drivel. But it makes me think. What has an old man to do but think when old friends don't come to visit anymore?"

Al shrugged and said nothing.

"So I thought: If I wish to help this dunderhead of a yellow journalist, which I certainly do not, I could help explain some of the disappearances. Not the ones found stabbed or bludgeoned—may their filthy, drunken souls rest in peace—but some of the disappearances. Because at least some of them are in my cellar."

"How … how many down there?" Al asked.

"Six," Snape said with utter calm. "Counting the one you helped with, six of them."

"You're nuts," Al said, his voice full of disbelief. The skin below his eyes had gone white and shiny. "At some point you just … just blew all your fucking wheels."

"Blew my wheels… What a charming idiom. Perhaps I did. But then I said to myself, this nasty little journalist would love to pin both the murders and the disappearances on the same person—his hypothetical tramp killer. That would tie things up nice and neat for him, and he could win a nice fancy journalism award." Snape's lip lifted in a feeble sneer.

"But I think, maybe that's not what happened at all. And I wonder to myself do I know someone who might be doing such things. I wonder to myself if I know someone who has been under as much strain as I over the past few years? Someone who has also been listening to old ghosts rattle their chains? And I say to myself, yes I do. I know you, boy."

"I've never killed anyone," Al said. And the image which came was not of the tramps; they weren't people, not really. The image that came was of himself, crouched on the slope over the motorway, aiming his pretend wand at the guy with the scrubby beard behind the wheel of the sport utility vehicle.

"Perhaps not," Snape agreed, amicably enough. "Yet you took hold so well that night. Your surprise was mostly anger at having been put in such a precarious position by an old man's infirmity, was it not?"

"Yeah. I was hacked off at you, and I still am. I covered up for you because you have something in your safety deposit box that could destroy my life."

"No. I do not."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"It was as much a bluff as your letter left with a friend. There was never a letter, and no friend. And I have never written anything of our … association, let us say. Now I lay my cards on the table. You saved my life. No matter that you did it to save your own neck, I cannot fault you, boy. This is the second Potter to whom I owe a life debt. How things come in circles, hmmm? I have looked death in the face, and it frightened me, but not as much as I thought it would, or how much it once might have.

"So no, there is no document. It is as you say, boy—we are quits."

AL smiled: a weird upward corkscrewing of the lips. An odd, sardonic light danced in his eyes.

"Mr Snape. If only I could believe that."

# # #

In the evening, Al rode his bike up to the greenbelt and climbed down to the dead tree overlooking the motorway. It was twilight, and the evening was warm. Below him, car headlights flowed down the pavement, like starry daisy chains.

_There is no document._

He hadn't realized just how irretrievable the whole situation was until the discussion that followed.

Snape suggested that Al return to the house and look for a safety deposit box key. When no key turned up, that would prove there was no box, and no document.

But a key could be hidden anywhere. It could be secreted in a soup tin and then buried; hidden behind a wallboard; or even thrown away. After all, Al pointed out, Snape had only needed the key once, to put his written document inside the box. After he died, someone else would open it up.

Snape had given a reluctant nod, before coming up with a new idea. Al could call up all the banks in the county, pretending to be calling on behalf of his grandfather. Poor grandfather, he'd say, had gotten lamentably senile of late, and could no longer remember where the key to his safety deposit box might be. Worse still, he could no longer remember which bank had his box in it. Could they check their files for an Archibald Craven, no middle initial?"

Al shook his head. First, that kind of story would set alarm bells ringing; it was too pat. They might smell a con game and call the constabulary. And second, even if every bank bought the story, who was to say that Snape hadn't gone down to London, or even up to Dundee, to rent his safety deposit box?

At last Snape had given up. "You have all the answers, boy. All but one. Why would I lie? I invented the safety deposit box story to protect myself, this is true. Now I am trying to uninvent it. What possible motive could I have for doing so?"

Snape had gotten laboriously on one elbow. "For that matter, why would I need a document at this point? I could destroy your life from this hospital bed, if I wanted to. I could open my mouth to the first passing doctor. Most of the residents in these three towns know of Snape, from the wizards living alongside them. They would all know who I am, or at least who I was. But why would I do such a thing? You are a fine student, with a fine career ahead of you—as long as you don't get careless with those tramps of yours."

Al's face froze. "I told you—"

"Yes, yes, I know. You never heard of them, you never touched so much as a hair on their scaly, lice-ridden heads. Fine. I say no more about it. Only tell me this, boy. Why would I lie about this? We are quits, you say. But I tell you that we can only be quits if we can trust each other."

Now, sitting behind the dead tree above the motorway, watching the headlights disappear and disappear like slow tracer bullets, Al knew what he was afraid of.

Snape talking about trust … that made him afraid.

The idea that Snape might be nursing a small garden of hatred for Al deep in his heart, Al with a bright future ahead of him, with his repaired family, with the whole world at his fingertips … that idea made him afraid, too.

But most of all what he feared was Snape's refusal to use his name.

Al. How hard was that, even for an old fuck whose teeth were mostly gone? Slide your tongue to the roof of your mouth, for the L sound and it was basically out.

Yet Snape had always called him "boy" ... Always that. Anonymous, Contemptuous ... A means of distancing…

Perhaps Snape was telling the truth about the document. No, not just perhaps—probably. Still, there were those fears, the worst of which being Snape's refusal to use his name.

And at the root of all of his fears was his own inability to make a hard and fast decision. And there was a final, rueful truth: after four years of visiting Snape, he still didn't really have a clue what went on in the old man's messed up, pickled head.

Cars and cars and more cars. His fingers itched to hold his wand. How many could he get? Three? Five? A baker's dozen?

He supposed the only way he would know was when Snape died. Then the truth would come out. Sometime in the next three to five years. Three to five… it sounded like a prison sentence. 'Alvin Potter, this court hereby sentences you to three to five for colluding with a known war criminal.' Three to five of the cold sweats and bad dreams…

Sooner or later Snape would just drop dead. And then the waiting would begin. The knot of apprehension in his stomach whenever the doorbell or phone rang. The sweaty hands and sense of impending doom whenever the mail slot clacked shut.

He wasn't sure he could stand that.

His fingers itched to hold his wand and Al curled them into fists, and then drove both fists into his crotch.

Sick pain bellowed up in peristaltic waves into his belly, and Al rolled onto the ground, curled into a writhing ball of agony, his mouth open in a silent shriek. The pain was terrible, but it blotted out the useless run of his thoughts.

At least for a while.


	20. Chapter 20

20

On a Sunday not long after Snape's admittance to the hospital, Lily Potter sat on the closed lid of the commode and stared wide-eyed at the plastic strip in her hand.

It was blue.

Positive.

She was growing a bun in the oven. A little stranger. She was, in the words of her friend Diana Zabini, "a little bit preggers."

This was the third test she had taken in the week. After throwing up for the sixth day in a row, the terrible possibility had loomed behind her closed eyes, the barely-acknowledge bogeyman of teenage girls everywhere.

Pregnant at fifteen, almost sixteen.

And now, staring at the third testing strip, which seemed to glare back accusingly, Lily could no longer hide from it. There was no longer any doubt.

Just like there was no doubt as to the identity of the father. Good old Scorpius Malfoy. Scorpius, who called her his special flower girl, growing in the garden of his heart. Such teenage cheesiness. But it had made Lily smile and hug him tight. What would he think of the fact that his special pollen had mated in his special flower girl to produce a special shoot? Would the shoot also blossom in the garden of his heart?

Lily somehow thought not. And she bitterly regretted allowing herself to succumb to his charms, when she had known better.

Scorpius had volunteered to help tutor her, once it had been decided by her parents to withdraw her from Hogwarts. Her father and Draco had established a somewhat cold, working friendship over the years, and Draco had allowed his son to go over to the Potter house. Harry later told her that if someone had suggested thirty years ago that any Malfoy would set foot into a property he owned, he would've laughed in their face.

So Lily and Scorpius had gotten closer over the past year, and when she had passed her O.W.L. exams she had been giddy with relief. And, on one warm June night, they had gone into a field with a fuzzy blanket and in went Tab A into Slot b. And here was the result, staring at her from this little plastic strip.

It hadn't even been all that great. Lily had wondered what the big fuss was about. There had been a sort of weird filling sensation, followed by a little friction. Not terribly unpleasant, but nothing to write home about. Then a gush of warm fluid and it was over. It hadn't even been two minutes.

But she had told him how wonderful it was, understanding, in that instinctive way of most self-aware females, that it was a delicate moment and could easily be ruined. She didn't really love him, but she was fond of him, especially the way he called her his special flower girl, growing in the garden of his heart. She had snuggled against him and told him how grateful she was, both for the experience just shared and for his help in passing her exams.

Now, sitting here in this bright bathroom a month after that experience, Lily felt completely alone. She imagined what her father's reaction was likely to be. Either he would disown her or go over and stomp the hell out of Scorpius. Her mother would probably give her the "where on earth did we go wrong in raising you speech." James&—the new James anyway&—was not likely to care at all, but the old James probably would've snickered at her. And Al?

Al wasn't around much mentally anymore. He had finished school with honours and seemed to be as bright and bouncy as ever, but Lily knew something was still going on in there. Once she had tried following him, but he must have sensed her because, barely ten minutes after leaving the house, she had lost him.

Growing a bun in the oven. All by herself. Was this how every woman felt down through the centuries when she was with child? What a scary thought.

Lily felt the bright point of light begin to shine in her mind, a way of escaping, of getting away from it all, and she fought it grimly. She could not afford to retreat into herself again. She had the baby to think about.

What on earth was she going to do? Was she ready for the miracle of new life?

She doubted it. She doubted it very much.

And, huddled in a dark ball under the bright lights which allowed no shadows, Lily curled up into a ball and cried.

Then she pulled herself together, straightened her back and combed her hair. It was time to see Scorpius and tell them about the new miracle in their lives. Miracle, she thought, her inner voice now sounding old and tired. Miracle indeed.

# # #

For Reginald Cattermole, that Sunday was a day of miracles.

His favourite Cricket team had won their first game in six years. And Constance, who had been fond of boasting smugly that she always took care of herself, and whose favourite saying was "a pound of prevention is worth a tonne of cure," slipped and sprained her hip on her friend Olivia's wet kitchen floor. She was at home in bed. It wasn't serious, thank God (what god?) for that, but it meant at least four days of no Connie. Four days of not hearing about how she had told him to get off that ladder, that the ground under it was unstable and he was up too high on it in the bargain. Four days of not having to listen to her tell him that that many people lived perfectly ordinary lives paralyzed from the waist down. Why, there were all kinds of special services, and busses, and most all the restaurants in town were wheelchair-friendly these days. After making this observation, Connie would give a brave smile and then burst into the ubiquitous tears.

Reggie smiled to himself and drifted into a contented late-afternoon nap.

When he next woke, it was half-past five. His roommate was asleep, himself. He had been firmly admitted into the hospital and he was awaiting an open slot for a bypass surgery. Another attack could happen at any time, so here he would remain until the slot opened.

Reggie still hadn't placed Craven, but he was certain that he had known the man at some point. A couple of times he had started to ask Craven about himself, but something had held him back, kept him making only the most mundane conversation with the man&—the weather, the local council, and who might be on the late show on a particular night.

Reggie told himself that he hadn't asked because the guessing game provided an interesting little mental side-trip. When you were in a body cast from your shoulders to your hips, you needed these little mental games to keep yourself from wondering how it was going to be, pissing through a catheter for the rest of your life, since you couldn't afford a complete home remodel to make your hearth and home wheelchair accessible. Little mental games kept you sane.

If he did come straight out and ask Craven, they would narrow their past down to a shared experience—a boat ride, a plane trip, maybe even the camps. There were plenty of survivors still. Very unsatisfying conclusion. But if he hadn't figured it out by the time Craven had his surgery, he would come straight out and ask: Say I have the feeling that I know you from somewhere&…

Yet there was a certain nasty undercurrent to his feelings, a certainty that perhaps he was better off not remembering. This uncertainty made him think of that old story from over a hundred years ago. An old couple received a monkey's dried, desiccated paw which granted wishes, but each wish came about through an evil turn of fate. The couple wished for two hundred pounds, and when their son had been killed in a nasty mill accident, the company offered compensation in the amount of two hundred pounds. Then the mother had wished her son alive again. They heard shambling, dragging footsteps on the walk. The mother, mad with joy, rushed downstairs to open the door. The father, mad with fear, scrabbled through the darkness for the paw, and sent his son back before the mother could open the door and see what a horror they'd summoned out of its grave. When the door was finally opened, the only thing that greeted them was an eddy of night wind.

In some ways Reggie thought that His knowledge of where he had known Craven was like the son in the old story—returned from the grave, not as he had been, but all chewed up and mangled from his fall into the gnashing, whirring industrial machinery. His knowledge of Craven was locked into his subconscious, knocking with eerie relentlessness on the door between there, where dwelt the shambling Morlocks of human fears, and the conscious mind, that of rationality and understanding. And he felt part of him was searching frantically for the monkey's paw, or its mental equivalent, to wish the knowledge away forever.

He looked over at the man sleeping in the other bed.

Craven, Craven &… where have I known you from? Was it Brecon? Is that why I don't want to remember? But surely, two survivors of such a horror do not have to be afraid of each other. Unless, of course&…

He frowned. It was suddenly very close, but something was distracting him. His feet were tingling. Tingling, the way a limb does when it's gone to sleep. If he could just sit up and rub&—

Reggie stopped, his thoughts breaking off like a radio. His feet were tingling. Of course, when you said a limb has gone to sleep when you felt that tingling, pins and needles sensation, what you really meant was that the limb was waking up.

His eyes widened.

He laid there, Connie forgotten, Brecon forgotten, Craven forgotten, everything forgotten as he felt the pins and needles pricking at his legs.

Reggie fumbled for a call button. He pressed it again and again until a nurse came. At first she didn't want to do anything; she'd had hopeful patients before, and Dr Carter-Smythe had a vast reputation for evil temper when being disturbed at home. But Reggie, normally a mild man, was not prepared to let her brush him off. He was prepared, in fact, to make uproar, if that was what it was going to take. His favourite team had won a game for the first time in six years. Connie had sprained her hip. And didn't they say that good things always came in threes?

So when the nurse saw he actually meant business, she left and came back with an intern, whom Reggie could swear was still dripping behind the ears. The intern was named Dr Frederics, and he looked as though he had gotten a haircut from a first-former with very dull scissors.

The intern pulled out a pen from his white coat pocket and ran the far end from Reggie's toes to heel. The foot twitched. It was by no means a curl, but they twitched—a definite twitch, impossible to mistake for anything else. Reggie burst into tears.

Dr Frederics sat on the side of Reggie's bed and patted his hand. He looked dazed.

"This is by no means uncommon," he said, speaking from the weighty depths of his experience, which might have stretched as far back as six months. "No doctor predicts it but it does happen. And apparently, thank heavens, it happened to you."

Reggie nodded through his tears.

Frederics kept patting his hand. "Obviously you are not completely disabled. But I wouldn't want to try and forecast whether your recovery will be complete or partial, and I doubt Dr Carter-Smythe will, either. You are probably bound for a lot of physical therapy, not all of which will be pleasant. But it is definitely better than &… you know."

"Yes," Reggie said through his tears. "Thank God!"

He remembered thinking that there was no God, and he felt his face fill with hot blood.

"I'll see to it that Dr Carter-Smythe is informed," Frederics said, giving Reggie's hand a final pat and rising.

"Will you call my wife?" Because, hand wringing and end-of-the-world theatrical crying aside, he felt something for her. Maybe it was love after all. An emotion which seemed to have little to do with also feeling like you could wring a person's neck.

"I'll see to it. Nurse could you—?"

"Sure, Doctor," she said, and squeaked off on her crepe-soled shoes.

"Thank you," Reggie said, wiping his eyes on a Kleenex from the box on the night stand. "Thank you so much."

Frederics left. At some point during the proceedings, Craven had woken up.

"You are to be congratulated, I take it," he said.

"We'll see," Reggie answered, unable—and unwilling—to stifle the huge, hopeful grin that spread on his face.

"Things have a way of working out," Craven said, his old, cracked voice vague, and then he reached for the remote control and switched on the telly.

It was quarter of six, and they watched the last of an afternoon drama. Then they watched the news. Still violence in the Middle East. In America, gas prices continued to rise. Inflation wasn't so bad and unemployment rates weren't, either. Closer to home, an unidentified man was found under a bridge, stabbed and bludgeoned.

Around six-thirty, Connie called. Dr Carter-Smythe had called her and, based upon the young intern's report, he was cautiously optimistic. Connie was cautiously joyous, and vowed to come in the next day even if it killed her. Reggie told her he loved her. Tonight he loved everyone—Connie, Craven, even the hospital volunteer who brought their supper.

Supper that night was cottage pie, a cauliflower and broccoli combination, and small dishes of ice cream for dessert. The hospital volunteer who brought supper that night was Kathleen, a shy blonde girl of perhaps twenty, who had her own good news to share. Her boyfriend had landed a plum job working for a big company in London, and he had asked her that day to marry him.

Mr Craven, who exuded a kind of ironic courtliness that all the young ladies—and even some of the older ones who had seen it all—responded to, expressed great pleasure. "Really?! You must sit down and tell us all about it. Tell us everything. Omit nothing!"

Kathleen blushed and giggled and said she couldn't do that. "We have the rest of this floor and third to do still and look, here it is six forty-five already!"

"Then tomorrow night, for sure. We want to hear it all. Don't we, Mr Cattermole?"

"Yes, indeed," Reggie murmured, but his mind was a long ways away.

(You must sit down and tell us all about it.)

Words spoken in that same, jocular tone. He had heard those words before; of that there could be no doubt. But was Craven the one to speak them?

(Tell us everything.)

The voice of a cultured man, a sane man. But there had been a threat behind the words, yes indeed. A steel hand in a velvet glove.

(Omit nothing)

Where had he heard those words?

(Brecon?)

Reggie Cattermole looked at his supper. Mr Craven had already gone to his supper with a will. The encounter with Kathleen had put him in fine spirits—the way he was after the boy who came to visit him sometimes.

"A very nice girl," Craven said around a mouth full of cauliflower.

"Oh yes—

(You must sit down)

"Kathleen, you mean. She's

(And tell us all about it)

Very sweet."

He looked down at his plate, remembering how it got to be in the camps after a while. At first you would've killed for a scrap of meat, no matter how old and rotten and green with decay. But after a while that crazy hunger disappeared, and you began to wonder if you would ever be hungry again. Your stomach shrivelled up into a small inert grey rock and you just slogged on from day to day.

Until someone showed you food.

("You must sit down and tell us everything, my friend. Omit nothing and tell us AAAALLLL about it.")

The main course on Reggie's plate was minced beef and potatoes. Why, then, did he suddenly think of lamb stew? Or was it really lamb stew? Something about the memory—

Then the hospital door banged open, admitting Connie hobbling ostentatiously on a crutch. Holding her elbow was Ruth Castles, his next door neighbour's wife, looking both apologetic and put-upon.

"Reggie!" Connie shrilled.

Mr Craven, startled, cursed and dropped his fork. He bent over to pick it up, wincing.

"It is so wonderful!" Connie was almost yowling with excitement. "I called up Ruth and asked her if she could bring me to the hospital tonight, I already had the crutch, and she said she could. I said to her, I said, if I can't bear this pain for Reggie, what kind of wife would I be to him? Those were my exact words, weren't they, Ruthie?"

Ruth Castles, perhaps now remembering that it was her own grandson that had caused at least part of the problem, nodded eagerly.

"So I rang up the hospital," she continued, shrugging off her coat and settling in for a good long visit, " and they said it was past visiting hours but in my case they would make an exception, but that we couldn't stay too long because we might bother Mr Craven. We're not bothering you, are we, Mr Craven?" Her tone allowed only one answer.

"Of course not, dear lady," Mr Craven said, his tone resigned.

"Here, sit down, Ruthie, take Mr Craven's chair, he's not using it. There's a good girl. Stop with the ice cream, Reggie, you're spilling it all over yourself just like a baby. No, never mind, I'll feed it to you. Goo-goo, gaga, over the teeth, over the gums, look out, stomach, here it comes. No, no, don't say a word. Mummy knows best. Would you look at him, Ruthie—he has hardly any hair left. I shouldn't wonder, what with him thinking he would never walk again. I said to him, I said that stepladder was wobbly, and I told him to get down off of there. I said—"

She chattered and rolled on, and by the time she left half an hour later, illusory lamb stew and where he might've known Craven in the past was the furthest thing from Reggie's mind.

He was exhausted. That today had been a busy day was the height of understatement. Reggie fell deeply asleep.

He came awake with a clawing, wrenching gasp at three in the morning. Now he knew. Now he knew exactly where and when he had been acquainted with the man in the other bed. A scream was locked behind his lips.

Reggie had just awakened from the most horrible nightmare of his entire life. He and Connie had, through some unsubstantiated dream magic, come into possession of a monkey's paw, and had wished for money. Then there had been a misty figure in a Death Eater uniform in the room with a telegram:

REGRET TO INFORM YOU BOTH SON AND DAUGHTER DEAD STOP BRECON RESETTLEMENT AND REEDUCATION STOP PLEASE ACCEPT CONDOLENCES STOP COMMANDER'S LETTER TO FOLLOW STOP WILL TELL YOU EVERYTHING AND OMIT NOTHING STOP COMPENSATION ONE HUNDRED GALLEON ON DEPOSIT TOMORROW STOP SIGNED LORD VOLDEMORT.

A theatrical wail from Connie. She had then held the monkey's paw high and wished his son and daughter alive again, even though she had never met them. The room went dark. And then, from outside, the sound of lurching, dragging footsteps.

Reggie was down on his hands and knees, scrabbling in a darkness that smelled of smoke and death and poisonous vapours. He was looking for the paw, to wish away this terrible dream, to spare himself the sight of his children. They would be thin as scarecrows, their eyes bloody holes, the burned flesh of their arms dripping.

A hammering on the door.

In the dream, his search for the paw became frenzied, but still it was gone, as though it had never been. The search seemed to last a hundred years.

Then, from behind him, he heard the door bang open.

_No. I won't look. I'll rip my eyes out of my head, if I have to, but I won't look,_ he thought with determined stubbornness.

But he did look, was helpless not to. In the dream, it was as though there were huge bands pulling his head around to stare at what was standing in the doorway.

It wasn't his children, desiccated and skeletonized; it was Craven. A much younger Craven in a Death Eater uniform. The bone-white mask gleamed, the boots were polished to a killing gloss. The cap on his head was cocked at just the right sneering angle. Clasped in his arms was a huge pot of what looked like lamb stew.

Then the dream Craven had pushed aside his mask and was smiling his suave, man-of-the-world smile. "You must sit down and tell us all about it—as one friend to another, hmmm? We have heard that drugs are being hoarded. That escapes are being plotted. That wands are being stolen. You must not insult our intelligence by pretending you know nothing. You know everything. So tell it all. Omit nothing."

And in the dark room, smelling the maddening, all-consuming aroma of the stew and seeing the wisps of steam rising from the cauldron, he told everything. His stomach, formerly a dead grey rock, now became a ravening tiger. Words spilled in a senseless flood from his lips, a lunatic's sermon, truth and falsehoods coming out in a jumble of helpless idiocy.

Zeller had Percocets taped below his scrotum!

("You must sit down")

Moon and Patil have been talking about stealing wands from the guards of tower number three!

("And tell us everything!")

Marcus Belby's father has tobacco, he gave some of it to the guard who comes on after Rowle, the one they call Booger-Eater because he's always picking his nose and putting his fingers in his mouth. Booger-Eater some of it to Belby so he wouldn't take his wife's blood pressure medication!

("Oh that makes no sense no sense at all but that's all right quite all right we'd rather have you mix up two stories than omit one completely you must omit NOTHING!")

There is a man who is trying to trade potion formulas for extra rations!

("Tell us his name")

I don't know it but I can point him out to you let me show you please let me show him to you I will I will I

("Tell us everything you know")

&…Will I will I will I will I will I will I will I

Until he came gasping out of the dream with a scream burning in his throat like fire. He stared over at the man in the other bed, particularly at the old, caved-in mouth. An ancient tiger with no teeth, an old rogue viper, all his poison sacs missing and with chipped, blunt fangs &… a Senile, old monster.

"Oh dear God," Reginald Cattermole whispered. His voice was a high, thin whistle, inaudible to anyone but himself. Hot tears trickled down his cheeks toward his ears. "Oh sweet Christ, the man who murdered my wife and children is here in this room with me now."

The tears ran faster, and Reginald Cattermole wished desperately for morning, and morning did not come for an age.


	21. Chapter 21

21

The next day, Monday, Al was up at six in the morning and picking with a marked lack of interest at a scrambled egg he had fixed for himself when his father came down, wearing the monogrammed bathrobe his wife had gotten him for Christmas last year.

"Mmf," he said to Al, heading over to the fridge.

Al grunted back without looking up from the book he was reading: an old African adventure story called _The Diamond Hunters._

Al had been lucky enough to find a job working for a gardening outfit operating out of Bristol. His father insisted that they learn to make their own way in the world, especially after James's problems. After his initial excitement about learning to Apparate, Al had quickly gotten tired of it; the squeezing sensation always left him feeling sick and ready to hurl now.

Unfortunately his job was a little bit off the bus route and was a bit far to bike. So he had to be driven there (his father wasn't willing to let him use the Jaguar over the summer.) Al hated the arrangement, especially riding to work with him in the morning. It was in the morning when he felt the most naked, when the wall between what he was and what he wished to be was thinnest. The summer sun lanced at his eyeballs like needles and seemed to burn away at his perceptions.

It was especially bad after a night of bad dreams. But even when no dreams came, it was still bad. One morning not long ago, Al realised with a spurt of terror so sudden it was almost agony that he had been seriously considering reaching over his father's briefcase, grabbing the wheel of the Jag and sending it careening into the two express lanes, cutting a swathe of destruction through the morning commuters.

"You want another egg, Al?" his father asked from the fridge.

"No thanks," Dad.

Harry ate them fried. In the pan for two minutes and then over easy. How the hell could anyone eat them like that? What you got on your plate at the end was a sick yellow eye that would bleed orange when you cut it with your fork.

Al pushed his scrambled egg aside, having barely touched it. It was a congealed mass now, anyway, about as appetising as snot.

"Not hungry this morning, Al?"

"Not much appetite, I guess." The paper flopped onto the top step.

Harry finished cooking and brought his plate to the table. "Maggy Thomas stole your appetite, that's my guess. He grinned with affection at his son; there was still a spot of shaving cream on the boy's right ear.

"Maybe that's it," Al said, offering a wan smile which vanished as soon as Harry went down the stairs to get the paper.

_Would it wake you up if I told you what a cunt she is, Dad? How about if I said "Oh, by the way, did you know that your good mate Dean Thomas's daughter Magnolia is one of the biggest sluts around? She'd kiss her own twat if she was double-jointed, that's what I think. Nothing but a stupid little slut. Two vials of ECP and she's yours for the night. And even if you can't get any E, she's still yours for the night. She'd shag a damn dog if she couldn't get a man. Think that'd wake you up, Dad? Get you a flying start to the day?_

Ecstasy/Cocaine Potion (ECP) was an invention that had come out about fifteen years ago. It was a distilled mixture of LSD and cocaine that had come rolling out of South America and had made a huge splash in the wizarding world. It was cheaper than regular cocaine because all they had to do was skim a little off the regular harvest and run a duplication charm on it, and you got a huge bale of leaves with little effort—all the high without the side-effects. Except overuse could make your brain develop pinprick haemorrhages all over it, turning it into grey Swiss cheese and then before you knew it you'd have a stroke and end up with all the intelligence and self-awareness of a rotten head of cabbage.

Al pushed the thoughts away viciously, but he was aware that they wouldn't stay gone.

Harry came back to the table, carrying a cup of tea and the paper. He sat down and addressed his breakfast.

"Maggy reminds me a bit of your mother when I first met her."

"Is that so?"

"Young &… pretty &… fresh&…" Harry's eyes had gone a little vague with memory. Then they came back into focus and he looked at his son again, his gaze now almost anxious. "Not that your mother isn't sill a very fine looking woman. It's just that at that age a girl has a certain&… glow, I guess. It's there for a while and then it's gone." He shrugged and opened the paper with a rustle. "Such is life, I reckon."

She's a bitch in heat. Maybe that's what makes her glow.

"You're treating her right, aren't you, Al?" Harry asked, skimming in his usual rapid perusal toward the sports section. "Not getting too fresh?"

"Everything's cool, Dad."

"Dean thinks you're a fine boy," Harry said, now speaking in an absent manner as he arrived at the sports. He became absorbed. Blessed silence descended over the breakfast table.

Magnolia "Maggy" Thomas had been all over him the very first time he had taken her out, a few weeks before school ended. She flooed over to his house, and He had borrowed the Jag and taken her to Bristol, where there was a roller skating rink. Then he had taken her to the local lovers' lane—it was after all expected of them—where they could swap spit for a half hour or so and have all the right things to say to their respective friends the next day. She could roll her eyes and regale them with stories about how she had fought off his advances—boys were so tiresome, weren't they, and she wasn't that kind of girl. Then they would all nod, giggle and troop into the girls' loo and do whatever the fuck it was they did in there—put on makeup, smoke tampons, give each other enemas ... Whatever.

As for a guy &… well, you had to at least snog. You had to make it to second base and try for third. Because there were reputations and reputations. Al didn't give a fuck about having a stud reputation. All he wanted was to be normal. And if you didn't at least try, word started to get around; people started to wonder if you were all right.

So he'd take them up to the hill above town, or above Hogsmeade if they wanted a date there, feel them up, kiss them, maybe go a little further if she allowed it. Then she would stop him, he would put up a little good-natured argument and that would be that. No worries about what might be gossiped about in the girls' loo. No worries that anyone was going to think Al Potter was anything but normal. Except—

Except Maggy Thomas was "that kind of girl." She fucked on the first date. On every date. And between dates.

The first time had been about a month before the god damn Death Eater's heart attack, and it hadn't been too bad. Mostly because there hadn't been a huge build up to it, thus allowing him time to get nervous or afraid.

Always before, Al had been able to sense when a girl would allow herself to get "carried away" on the next date, and had been able to break it off. He was aware that both his looks and his prospects were good—hell, he was the son of a damned hero, the kind of boy their bitchy mothers thought of as a "good catch." So when he sensed that she was going to allow him to go "all the way" he would start dating somebody else. Al was able to admit to himself that, should he ever run across a truly frigid girl, he would probably be happy to date her for years to come; perhaps even marry her.

But the first time had really gone well. He had needed her help to get his cock into her, but she had seemed to take that as a matter of course. And halfway through their coupling, she had burbled up from the blanket they were lying on: "I just love to fuck!" It was the same tone a girl might use to express her love for chocolate, or ice cream, or pretty ponies.

Later encounters, five of them (five and a half, if you wanted to count last night), had gotten exponentially worse. Al didn't believe that Maggy had been aware of that, at least not at first. In fact, she probably thought she had found the battering ram of her dreams.

Al had not felt any of the things you were supposed to feel at a time like that. Kissing her lips was like snogging two rolls of warm but uncooked liver. Having her tongue in his mouth made him wonder what kind of diseases she might be carrying, from the other guys she undoubtedly saw between her dates with him. Sometimes he thought he could smell her fillings—a high, unpleasant metallic aroma, like hot car bonnets. Her breasts were bags of fat and no more.

They had gotten together twice before Snape's heart attack, and Al had increasing problems getting erect. Both times, he had needed the help of a little mental fantasy. She was stripped naked in front of all his friends, sobbing. He had forced her to march up and down in front of them all, crying out: Show us your tits! Bend over and show us your twat! That's it, bend over and spread your cheeks!

Maggy's appreciation was not at all surprising. Al was a good lover, not in spite of his problems, but because of them. Once you got hard, you had to have an orgasm. The fourth time they had done it—this was three days after Snape's heart attack—he had pounded away at her for nearly ten minutes. Maggy had had three orgasms and was trying for a fourth. Meanwhile, Al, almost insane with a desire to get this horror over with, called up the memory of a fantasy—what was, in fact, the first fantasy. The stainless steel autopsy table. The girl, clamped and helpless. The huge dildo. The rubber squeeze bulb. And in a final, sweaty and desperate bid to end things, he replaced the girl's face with Maggy's. That brought on a rubbery, joyless spasm that was—at least technically—an orgasm, and he had rolled off her, almost crazy with relief.

Maggy had rolled over and whispered in his ear, her breath redolent with strawberry bubble gum: "Lover, you can do me any time. Just call and I'll be ready." Al had nearly groaned aloud.

The crux of his dilemma was this: Wouldn't his reputation suffer if he broke it off with a girl so willing to put out for him? Wouldn't people wonder why?

Part of him thought they would not. He remembered being in third year and walking behind two seventh year boys down the hallway. One of them told the other that he had just broken it off with his girlfriend. The other wanted to know why. "Fucked 'er out," this boy had proclaimed, and they both bellowed goatish laughter.

If someone asks me why I broke it off with her, I'll just say I shagged her out. But what if she says we only did it five times? Is that enough? What? &… How much? &… How many? &… Who'll talk? &… What'll they say?

So his mind ran on, as restless as a rat in a locked maze. He was aware that he was turning a minor problem into a large one, and that this very inability to solve it was the clearest indicator of how far out he had gotten. But awareness did not bring on an ability to change his behaviour, and he sank into a black depression.

University. University would bring on a reason to break it off with Maggy that no one would dispute. But September was so far away.

The fifth time it had taken him almost twenty minutes to achieve an erection, but Maggy had proclaimed the experience worth the wait. And the last time—jus the night before—he hadn't been able to get it up at all.

"What are you, anyway?" Maggy had asked, her voice petulant and pouty after almost ten minutes of manipulating his lax penis. "Are you one of those AC/DC guys?"

He very nearly beat her face bloody. And if he'd had his wand with him—

"Well, I'll be a boiled Pygmy Puff! Congratulations, son!"

"Huh?" Al looked up, dragged out of his black study.

"You've been selected by the Sussex County Cricket Club!" His father was grinning with pride and pleasure.

"Is that so?" At first Al didn't have a clue what he was talking about; he had to dig for the meaning of the words. "Oh yeah &… Coach Hendrickson mentioned something to me about that. Said he was putting me and a kid named Roger Devons up, but I never thought anything would come of it."

"Well geez, you sure don't seem too excited about it."

"I guess I

(Who gives a flying fuck?)

just need to get used to the idea." With a heroic effort, he offered a wide grin. "Can I see the paper?"

Harry offered Al the paper and got to his feet. "I got to wake Ginny up. She's got to see this before we leave."

Oh sweet Merlin—I can't take both of them this morning.

"Naw, don't do that. You know she won't be able to get back to sleep if you wake her up. We'll leave it for her on the table."

"Yeah, I suppose we could do that. You're a damn thoughtful boy, Al."

He clapped Al on the back and Al squeezed his eyes closed. At the same time he shrugged in an aw-shucks gesture that made his father laugh.

Al opened his eyes again and looked at the paper.

_4 BOYS SELECTED BY SUSSEX COUNTY CRICKET CLUB,_ the headline read. Beneath were four photos—Al on the far right, and Roger Devons, from Bristol Secondary, on the far left. He was half-black, just like Maggy Thomas. That was probably why he hadn't been able to get it up last night. Sure.

He looked up, and there was his father, hand stuck out and a foolish grin on his face.

_Your buddy Dean Thomas is a nigger and a Mudblood!_ He heard himself screaming into his father's face. _That's why I was impotent with his slutty bitch of a daughter last night! That's the reason!_ And then, on the heels of that, the cold voice that rose in him at moments like this, shutting off the rising flood of crazy irrationality, as if

(GET HOLD OF YOURSELF RIGHT NOW)

Behind warded steel gates.

He took his father's hand and shook it. Smiled a guileless smile into his father's own grinning face. Said: "Geez, thanks, Dad."

They left that page of the newspaper on the table with a note for Ginny, which Harry insisted Al sign: _From Your Cricketer Son, Al._


	22. Chapter 22

22

Howard Kramer, aka Duckie Howie, also aka the Quackman and Kissy-Kissy, was sitting in his room at a bed and breakfast in the small and lovely seaside town of Carraig Na Greine, County Galway, Ireland. He was here for a guidance counsellor convention. It was a waste of time if ever there had been one. The only thing guidance counsellors could agree on was not to agree. He had been bored with the paper-reading, panels and discussions after a single day. They had decided to hold it here because it was neutral ground; the convention encompassed counsellors from Australia, the United States and Canada and none of them wanted to host it. So Galway got the job.

He was staying up here in this tiny berg about forty minutes north of Galway proper because it was cheaper, and he had quickly gotten bored with this town too. Of the three adjectives small, lovely, and seaside, the key word was probably small. There was only one pub and one bed and breakfast, and both were hosted by surly locals who eyed him with frank suspicion. So much for the famed Irish hospitality.

So here he was, on the second floor of the converted house, on the third day of a boring convention that stretched out over an incredible four days. The television was broken, the book he had brought was finished and he did not feel like sitting in the pub to be eyed by the locals and gossiped about. Tomorrow's workshop was on helping the "vocally challenged" child—those who had cleft palates or stuttered, but we couldn't come right out and say that, gosh no! He supposed he could go for a drive and explore the beautiful Irish countryside, but he didn't really feel like doing that either. One could look at sheep and fishermen's boats and farm yards for only so long before going bonkers.

So he did what almost every bored traveller in bed and breakfasts and hotels all over the world did: he pulled out his portable computer and flipped aimlessly through the phone directories for County Galway. He wondered if he might know anybody crazy enough about small, lovely or seaside to live around here. And if he did find someone and get hold of them, what the hell would you say? "Patty! How the hell are you, mate? And by the way, which is it—small, seaside, or lovely?" Sure. Right. Give that man a cigar and set him on fire.

Yet, as he sat at the rickety desk idly tapping the touch pad, he thought he did know of someone who lived around here. A cousin? One of his brother-in-law's nieces of nephews, of which there seemed to be whole flocks? A relative of a student?

That last seemed to ring a bell, but it was very faint and he couldn't really pin it down.

After a while he discovered he was sleepy and could use a nap. He was just dozing off, his mind disconnected and drifting along, when he remembered and sat up with a jerk.

Al Potter's great uncle! That's who it had been. Prewett, hadn't that been his name? Adrian Prewett.

Sure. The guy in the fancy Muggle suit. The guy who had a farm out here someplace because he was tired of the infighting in the wizarding world.

Al Potter had been one of the best kids in the class. Then his grades had gone to hell in a handcart. His uncle had come in, told a familiar tale of marital difficulty, and had asked Howard to let the situation alone and see if things would resolve themselves. And they sure had; Al's grades had picked up just fine at the end of the year, and Howard was rather surprised, to tell the truth. It had been his experience that when you told a teenage kid to straighten up, fly right or die, he or she usually died.

The old man must have really gone through the family and kicked some arse. He looked like the kind of man who not only could do it, but would derive a certain dour pleasure from it. He looked like he had the potential to be a real tough taskmaster.

Al had finished school with honours, and just two days ago, Howard had seen mention of his name in a _Daily Prophet_ column which kept track of recent school leavers for a year. He had been selected for the Sussex CCC, the oldest of the county clubs,, no mean feat, when one considered there was likely to be over a hundred students put up for the honour. Being selected for that generally meant a great chance of playing for England. Howard ran his finger down a column of names, and sure enough, there it was. Prewett, Adrian, Donegal Farm, Galway.

He picked up the old-fashioned phone and dialled the number listed.

An old man's voice answered.

"Hallo?"

"Hello, Mr Prewett. This is Howard Kramer&… From Hogwarts?"

"Yes?"

Curiosity and politeness, no more. Certainly no recognition. Well, he was almost five years further along (weren't they all!) and undoubtedly things slipped his mind now and then.

"Do you remember me, sir?"

"Should I?" Prewett's voice was cautious, and Howard smiled. He forgot things and undoubtedly did his best to hide it. His own da had been that way when his hearing started failing.

"I was your great nephew Alvin's counsellor at Hogwarts, and I just called to congratulate you. He finished second in his class and is now playing for Sussex CCC. Wow."

"Al, yes," the old man said, his voice brightening immediately. "Second in his class! And the girl ahead of him decided to take business courses." A slight sniff of disdain in the old man's voice. "My niece called and offered to take me to the ceremony, but I broke my hip last January and I'm in a wheelchair now. I got Al's graduation picture in the hallway though, you bet! He's made his parents very proud. And me, of course."

"Yes. I guess we got him over the hump," Howard said. He was smiling as he said it, but his smile was a bit puzzled—somehow, Adrian Prewett didn't sound the same. But of course, it had been a long time ago, now.

"Hump? What hump?"

"The little chat we had. When Al was having trouble with his course work ... Back in third year."

"I'm not following you," Prewett said, now speaking slowly. "I would never presume to speak for Ginny's son. It would cause trouble, ho-ho, you don't know how much it would cause. You've made a mistake, young fellow."

"But—"

"Some sort of mistake. You are mixing me up with another student and another relative, I imagine."

Howard was moderately thunderstruck. For one of the few times in his life he couldn't think of a word to say. If there was any confusion, it sure wasn't on his part.

"Well," Prewett said, now sounding somewhat doubtful, "it was nice of you to ring, Mr—"

Howard found his voice. "Look, Mr Prewett. I'm here in town—a convention for guidance counsellors. I'll be done around ten-thirty tomorrow. Could I swing by—" he consulted the computer screen "—Donegal Farm and see you for a few minutes?"

"I suppose," Prewett said, "but why?"

"Well, I guess it doesn't really matter now, as its all water under the bridge. But back in his third year, Alvin got himself into a real slump with his grades. They were so bad I had to send a note home with his progress report requesting a parent conference. What I got was his great uncle, a very pleasant man named Adrian Prewett."

"But I've already told you—"

"Yes, I know. All the same, I got someone who claimed to be Alvin's great uncle. As I said, it doesn't really matter now, but seeing is believing. I'll only take a few minutes of your time, because I've got a long drive ahead of me and I don't like Apparating or Portkeys."

"Time I have lots of," Prewett said, sounding a little rueful. "I'll be here all day and you're welcome to stop by."

"Thank you," Howard said, and, after getting driving directions, he hung up.

He sat on the end of the bed and stared at the phone thoughtfully. Then he rose and got a package of Cigarillos out of his sport coat pocket. He opened the window and stared blankly at the empty gravel lane outside, puffing his Cigarillo and thinking.

It doesn't matter much now, he had told Prewett, but it mattered to him. He was not used to being sold a bill of goods by one of his students.

Technically, he supposed, it was possible that the whole situation could turn out to be a case of an old man's senility ... Technically. But Adrian Prewett hadn't sounded like he was quite drooling in his oatmeal yet. And, damn it, he just didn't sound the same. His voice was different.

Had Alvin run a con game on him?

He decided it was possible: Theoretically, anyway ... Especially by a bright boy like Alvin Potter. He could've conned everyone, not just Howard Kramer. Forged his parents' signature on his flunk card and then changed his grades up and down, up for his parents and back down again for his teachers. The double application of ink eradicator would've been visible if one was really looking, but teachers these days were carrying an average class load of sixty students and barely had time to get the roll call out, let alone spot checking every report card that came back. There was a serious overcrowding issue at Hogwarts now. There was talk of building a new building on the campus and hiring new staff, but the eternal budget woes kept this from being done.

As for Al's final class standing that year, it would've dipped only a few points, perhaps no more than three or four—two bad marking periods over the year. His other grades would've been lopsidedly good enough to make up the difference.

And how many parents dropped by the records department in the Ministry, where all the old report cards were stored in magically expanded cabinets? Especially the parents of a bright student like Alvin Potter?

Al's O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. work had been damn near exemplary. There was no way you could fake those results, or the final averages he had graduated with. And he was going on to university in the fall, having done equally well on his Muggle qualifications. His parents had every right to be proud; so many students slogged their way through the system just looking to get out. And parents of a stand-out student like Al had every right to gloat a little.

Especially when they had a screwball son like the Potters did in James, or a nutty daughter like Lily. Shame about what happened to that girl. She was almost brighter than Al, in a different, whimsical sort of way. She had done reasonably well on her own O exams; Howard had been interested enough to check. It wasn't often that a student was withdrawn from Hogwarts and he was curious to see what became of her.

But back to Al&…

It doesn't matter much now—but who the hell had his great uncle been? That kept digging at him.

Who, indeed? Had Alvin gone to the local branch of something like the Elizabethan theatre group and put a notice on the bulletin board? Something like Young man in marks trouble requires older man pref. 70-80 yrs. For BOFFO performance as older relative, will pay union scale?

How ridiculous.

And just what sort of adult would have fallen in with such a crazy conspiracy, and for what reason?

Duckie Howie, aka the Quackman and Kissy-Kissy, had no idea. And because he probably never would find out, he stubbed out his Cigarillo and resigned himself to an evening of being stared at in the pub.

The next day, after his workshop, he drove on out to Donegal Farm and had a nice long chat with Adrian Prewett. They discussed marks; they discussed farming and how the big conglomerates were squeezing the little guys out. They even discussed the political climate in Galway County.

Mr Prewett offered Howard a glass of port, and Howard accepted, even though it was only eleven in the morning. He felt he needed one. This man looked nothing at all like the man who had come into his office. That man had been whip-thin, while this one was quite fat. And the shape of the face was all wrong, and the mannerisms. Most important of all, this Adrian Prewett did not smoke.

Before departing on his journey back to England, Howard said: "I'd be grateful if you didn't mention any of this to Mr or Mrs Potter. There could be a reasonable explanation for all this &… and even if there isn't, it's all in the past."

"Sometimes, young fellow," Prewett said, holding his glass of port up to the watery sun and admiring its rich dark colour, "the past does not rest so easy. Why else do you think people study history?"

Howard offered an uneasy smile and said nothing.

"But don't you worry. I never meddle in Ginny's affairs. And Alvin is a good boy. Second in his class, he must be a good boy, am I right?"

"As rain," Howard replied, and asked for another glass of port.

# # #

While Howard Kramer was enjoying his glass of port with Adrian Prewett, Lily Potter wove through the bustling summer-busy Diagon Alley. Astoria Malfoy told her that Scorpius had gone to the bookshop and would probably be having an ice cream with some of his friends. Lily hadn't been able to catch him when she dropped by Malfoy Manor the past couple days, so she was going to try the ambush approach.

She hadn't worked up the courage yet to tell her parents about her impending little stranger. She had been able to keep hiding the morning sickness, although it was still quite bad; it felt like she might open her eyes and see half her internal organs lying there after she finished sometimes. Her mother wasn't home a lot these days; there was talk of the _Daily Prophet_ being sold to one of the London newspaper chains and Ginny was fighting it desperately. Her father was absent a lot, too—something about trying to crack down on the ECP traffic. So hiding it wasn't a problem, at least for now. That couldn't last, though. As small as she was, Lily was afraid she was going to pop like a balloon in the second month.

The crush of people ahead of her cleared, and there, sitting in front of the ice cream parlour was Scorpius, with three boys, only one of whom she recognised—Anders Nott. He was a boy with shifty eyes whom Lily didn't trust much, and whom she didn't like Scorpius hanging out with.

Lily hurried over. "Scorpius, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure," he said, and waved to his friends. "Be back in a minute."

_Not likely,_ she thought, and led him to a quiet alley between two buildings.

"What's the matter, Flower Girl?" he asked, taking her hand and looking into her eyes. "You don't look good."

Lily bit her lip and fidgeted. Now that the moment was here, she couldn't think of a thing to say.

"I'm pregnant," she blurted, inwardly kicking herself for not finding a better way to break the news... But was there really one?

Scorpius's face froze for a moment. "Are &… are you sure?"

"Yes &… positive." She giggled shrilly at the unintended pun. "Oh Scorpius, I'm sorry really. I didn't mean for this to happen—"

But she stopped as a wide, sunny, brilliant grin broke across his pale face. "That's awesome news!" he proclaimed, grabbing her and spinning her around. "I can't believe it! This is great!"

"No it isn't!" she said, breaking free and looking at him as though he were crazy. "It's a disaster! What's gotten into you?"

Scorpius calmed down a little, but a small smile still twitched around his lips. "Bella got into a bit of an accident earlier this year. Fell off her broom. We found out that she wasn't going to be able to have kids anymore, so now all the pressure is on me. You and I, my Flower Girl, are going to continue the Malfoy line!"

Lily felt dazed. He wasn't running out on her? She still couldn't believe it.

"You mean &… you're happy about this? You're not going to leave me?"

"Oh, Lily, of course not!" he exclaimed, and swept her into his arms again. "It's the best possible news you could've given me today. You're going to have all the support you need from us. Come, let's go see my father!"

Finally, Lily collapsed against Scorpius's chest and cried with relief. It felt as though a two hundred stone weight had just been removed from her shoulders. She was not alone anymore.

Eventually, she dried her tears, and they took the Floo from the Leaky Cauldron to Malfoy Manor. And the whole world opened in front of Lily, at last.


	23. Chapter 23

23

Snape's sleep was uneasy, broken; he lay in a rancid lake of bad dreams.

They had begun breaking down the fence. Thousands of them, perhaps millions. They came running and shambling out of the jungle in wave after wave, throwing themselves against the warded fence. The wires were beginning to lean ominously inward, Some of them broke and lay on the ground, spitting purple sparks.

The Dark Lord was as mad as everyone said he was if he thought he could get rid of all of them. They filled the universe, all the Muggles and Mudbloods and squibs, and they were all coming for him.

"Old man. Wake up, old man. Snape. Wake up."

At first he thought it was a voice in the dream. The voice had familiar overtones, from somewhere in his past, so it had to be a dream. But dimly he recognised its essential reality. The voice was there, really there. There was no escaping it. He swam upward out of the dream.

There was a woman sitting on the chair by his bed. A middle aged woman with bushy greyish-brown hair and a small nose. Her teeth were no longer as beaver-like prominent—a result of that idiot Draco Malfoy's curse on her, back in this girl's fourth year, but the face and hair were instantly recognisable. How could he have thought this woman was part of the dream?

"Are you speaking to me?" Snape asked. Even at this crucial moment, he must not break cover. Although he thought it was probably already too late, if this woman was here.

"Who else?" she said. "Your roommate is gone."

"Cattermole? Yes. He left yesterday."

"Are you awake now?"

"Yes. But you apparently have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Archibald Craven. Perhaps you have the wrong room?

"Come now, professor. I'm sure you recognise me. It's Hermione Granger, the know-it-all Mudblood, as you called me once. And you are Severus Snape."

Snape wanted to lick his lips but didn't. He was perversely sure this was part of the dream still—just another, worse phase. Bring me a steak knife and a homeless tramp, Miss Know-it-all, and I'll blow you away like smoke in a tornado.

"I do not know this Snape," he said, and he was eerily reminded of his first meeting with the boy. "I don't understand you. Shall I ring for the nurse?"

"Oh, I think you understand perfectly well, Professor. You always were a sharp one." She shifted position in her chair and tucked a lock of her eternally bushy tresses behind her ear. The femininity of this gesture dispelled Snape's last hope that this was still part of the dream.

"Your roommate was named Reginald Cattermole. He fell off a ladder while he was repairing shingles on his house. He broke his back and might never walk again. Quite unfortunate, yes? But this was not the worst tragedy of his life, professor. He was an inmate at the Brecon camp, where he lost his wife, son and daughter. Brecon, which you commanded."

"I think you are insane. My name is Archibald Craven. I came to the West Country when my wife died. Before that—"

"Spare me your tale, Professor. Although I'm sure it is as well-made as your Draught of Enticement, I do not wish to hear it. Cattermole has never forgotten your face. This face." Granger waved a photograph in front of Snape's face. It had appeared as if by magic. Snape recognised it; it was one of those which the boy had shown him all those years ago. A younger Snape, sitting behind his desk at Brecon, his uniform cap cocked at just the right sneering angle.

Snape spoke slowly, enunciating with great care. "I was born in Yorkshire and attended Milford Preparatory School. I worked on the Ford assembly line in Essex until—"

"—until it became necessary for you to run away to America, with your stolen money from the Muggle-borns and the squibs. Mr Cattermole went to the rehab centre a happy man, you know. Oh, he had a bad moment when he woke up in the night and realised with whom he was sharing a room. But he has some perspective now. He feels that God allowed him the sublime privilege of breaking his back so that he could be instrumental in the capture of one of the greatest butchers of human beings in the twenty-first century."

Snape continued to speak with great care. "I bought a house in 2012 with my severance pay. I—"

"Why not give it a rest, professor. Your papers will not stand up to any serious examination. I know it and you know it. You are found out. The Know-it-all has found you."

"I came to the West Country when my wife died. Before that I—"

"Oh, why be tiresome? The Muggle authorities are going to cooperate with us, Professor Snape. One way or another, you will be in our hands before the week is out."

"I bought a house in—"

"Very well then. Have it your way. But don't worry. You'll be seeing me again. Soon."

Granger rose and left the room. Her shadow bobbed on the wall, and then she was gone.

Snape closed his eyes again. He knew she was telling the truth about Muggle cooperation. And even if she wasn't, Granger and her colleagues would still have him. One way or another, legal or illegal, they would have him. On the subject of Death Eaters they were intransigent, and on the subject of the camps they were lunatics.

He was trembling all over. But he knew what he must do now.


	24. Chapter 24

24

The records for Hogwarts students going back over the past twenty years were kept on the fourth floor of the Ministry building in London. Older records did not exist, having been destroyed in the war.

Howard Kramer got there about four in the afternoon, got directions from a surly maintenance worker, and plodded up and down the dim aisles of file cabinets looking for the right one. The organisation system in here was mind-boggling.

At last he found the right cabinet and pulled it open. Thumbing through a number of files that obviously couldn't fit in the space provided, he muttered to himself.

"Parkinson &… Paddington &… Peebles &… Poindexter &… Potter, Alvin."

He pulled out the report cards for Alvin's years and thumbed to third. Shaking his head with impatience at the dim light in the archives, Howard took the file over to one of the dusty windows.

Sure enough, the progress cards and final cards had been carefully, almost professionally doctored. If he hadn't been looking for it, he never would've spotted it, the job was that good.

"Sweet Merlin," Howard Kramer muttered to himself, as dust motes danced up and down the aisles.

# # #

After leaving Malfoy Manor with joyful plans for a party ringing in her dazed ears, Lily went to see Luna Weasley, to share the good news. She didn't know why she hadn't thought of going to see her first. It was really the most obvious choice. Luna was always the one she could confide in, because as cliché as it sounded, none of her family really understood her. They loved her (mostly anyway; she still wasn't too sure about James and Al), but seemed to view her with strained tolerance most of the time.

Luna smiled widely at the news. "I bet it wasn't anything you expected to happen, was it?" she asked the young girl, eyeing her with a shrewd expression. "You expected Scorpius to love you and leave you, am I right?"

Lily blushed. "Yeah. I mean &… all I had to go on was my brother's behaviour. I guess I thought all boys would be like that."

"I'm happy this one wasn't," Luna said, embracing her. "I have to say, though, I am extremely surprised. The idea of a Potter/Malfoy alliance never even crossed my mind when your father and Draco were in school together. It is most ironic."

"Do you think my father will &… throw me out or disown me?" Lily asked, voicing for the first time one of her greatest fears.

"Of course not! You're his only daughter. He will be so shocked he might fall over, but he won't disown you. You will have two wealthy families to back you, dear. You won't end up penniless on the street."

"Are you sure?" she asked, her eyes wet.

Luna embraced her. "Very sure. If you want, I'll be there with you when you tell him."

That evening, while Howard Kramer was sitting in his flat eating his bachelor's supper, wondering about Al Potter's doctored report card and just who that old man had been, and while Hermione Granger was having a student conference with her old professor, Luna and Lily went to see Harry and Ginny and give them the news. Al was upstairs in his room, and James was at his desk clerk job, so it was just the three of them.

Harry did indeed drop his glass of wine when he heard the news that his daughter was pregnant by the son of his once greatest school enemy. Then he burst out laughing at the irony, and hugged his daughter.

"I never saw this coming, Lily. Not in a million years."

"I'm sure you didn't. I'm sorry, Daddy. Do you still like me?" Lily looked up at Harry with big, fearful eyes.

"Of course, baby. I still like you fine," Harry said, wrapping his arms around his daughter.

All her fears finally relieved, Lily hugged her father tight. And Luna left them to their family gathering, secure in the knowledge that they would all be okay in the end.


	25. Chapter 25

25

Snape walked with an old man's careful steps down the hospital corridor. He was still a bit unsteady on his legs. He was wearing a bathrobe the boy had brought him over his hospital gown. It was late in the evening, just after eight-thirty, which was when the nursing shift changed. It was a confused time—Snape had observed that all the shift changes were confused and chaotic. It was a time for exchanging gossip and patient reports, of drinking coffee at the nurses' station, which was just around the corner from the drinking fountain.

The room he wanted was just across from the fountain. He moved down the wide hospital corridor, which reminded him of a busy train station. The walking wounded perambulated up and down, some wearing robes, others holding the backs of their gowns together, still others limping using IV poles as makeshift crutches. Visitors came and went. Half a dozen different snatches of music came out of half a dozen different rooms. A man laughed in one room, while in another across the hall, a woman seemed to be weeping. A doctor wandered by with his face in a thick paperback.

Snape got a drink from the fountain and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The room he wanted was always locked—at least, in theory. In practice he had observed that it was sometimes both unlocked and unattended, usually during the chaotic half hour of the shift changes when the nurses were clustered like magpies around the corner.

He only wished he had another week or so to observe, to watch for patterns—he would only have the one chance. But he didn't have a week; probably not even two days. His status as ghoul in residence might not be known for two or three days, but it could happen tomorrow. And, once he was known, he would be watched constantly.

Casually, with no effort at concealment, Snape strolled across the hall and opened the door to the drug closet. If the woman who was supposed to be at the little desk in there had been present, he was only near-sighted Mr Craven. _So sorry, dear lady. I thought it was the loo. Stupid of me._

But the drug closet was empty.

He stepped in and closed the door. He ran his eye over the shelf on his left: Nothing but eye drops, eardrops and nose drops. The shelf on his right: Laxatives and suppositories. Finally on the third shelf straight ahead was what he was looking for. He grabbed a bottle of Zolpidem, tucked it into his robe pocket and opened the door again. He stepped out, not looking around; a puzzled smile on his lips—that certainly wasn't the loo, was it? There it was, on the left side of the hallway.

He stepped into the men's bathroom, washed his hands, waited for thirty seconds and came back out again. Then he headed for his semiprivate room, which was now completely private after the departure of the Hon. Mr Cattermole.

On the table between the two beds was a plastic pitcher full of water and two plastic glasses. Pity there was no whisky, but the pills would send him off just as neat, no matter how they were washed down.

Snape reclined against his scant hospital pillow and poured a glass of water. He took three pills, followed by a sip of water, then three more.

It was really quite funny, wasn't it? After all those years jumping at shadows, of seeing half-recognised faces on park benches and bus and train stations, of listening for voices in the night, he had been recognised by a man he wouldn't have known from Adam. Yes, quite funny indeed.

He took another three pills. Across the hall, two old men were playing a grumpy game of checkers. Someone was laughing hysterically a little further down.

He refilled his water glass, but did not take any more pills right away. If he went too fast they would only make him sick, and he would throw up the pills. He had no intention of trying to take his life stupidly, like a drunk on a crying jag. They would pump his stomach of the residue and he would be submitted to whatever horrors the MBO had in store for him. No sir. None of that for him. When he began to get dozy, he would take three more, then three more. That would do fine.

As he lay there, listening to the sound of hospital around him, he remembered his years in America. They had such charming idioms, such delightful turns of phrase. 'I don't give a tin shit,' 'take this job and shove it where the sun don't shine,' 'money talks, nobody walks.' Such wonderful idioms.

They thought they had him, but he was going to basically tell them to stuff it where the sun don't shine. One last fuck you all.

He found himself wishing, of all absurd things, that he could leave a note for the boy. To tell him that even though he had not liked him, in the end he, Snape, had come to respect him, and that talking to him had, in the end, been much better than listening to the maddening run of his own thoughts. But any note, no matter how innocent, would cast suspicion on the boy, and he had no desire to do that. He wasn't that spiteful—at least, not any more. Maybe last year he would've done it, but not now. Now he was just tired.

The boy might have a bad month or two, waiting for some government agent to come knocking on the door and enquiring about a certain document found in a safety deposit box rented to one Severus Snape, aka Archibald Craven, but when no knock came, the boy would come to believe Snape had been telling the truth about there being no document.

No, there was no need for the boy to be touched by any of this, as long as he kept a cool head.

Snape reached out with a hand that seemed to stretch for miles on a taffy arm, got the glass of water, and took another three pills, then three more. He had never felt so much like sleeping, and his sleep would be long and restful.

Unless there were dreams.

The thought shocked him. Dreams? Please God, no. Not those dreams. Not for eternity, not with all possibility of awakening gone. Not—

In sudden terror, he tried to sit up. Skeletal hands seemed to be reaching for him out of the depths of his bed, avaricious hands with clawing fingers.

_(NO!)_

His thoughts began to break up in a soupy, chaotic mess, and he spiralled down and down, to whatever dreams there are.

His overdose was discovered at one forty-five A.M. The nurse who discovered him was named Amber Pembroke, and she was one of those older ladies susceptible to Mr Craven's slightly ironic charm. When she found him, she burst into tears. She was a Catholic, and she couldn't understand how such a sweet old man, who was going to be better as soon as they operated on him, could do such a thing and damn his immortal soul to hell.


	26. Chapter 26

26

The Potter household rarely stirred itself awake before nine in the morning on the weekends. The family had come together to support Lily, even James. Harry had put in a call to Draco Malfoy the night before, and, after they both had chuckled at the past and the irony of the present situation, they had set about beginning to negotiate a union of their two families. A meeting would be held at Gringotts to draw up prenuptial agreements and last wills and testaments and other such legal documents the following week. Then it would be off to St Mungo's for check-ups and vitamin prescriptions and other prenatal care business.

Now, on this bright sunny Saturday, Ginny served both Al and Harry, who were reading at the table, eggs, bacon and orange juice without speaking, still half in her dreams.

Al was reading a paperback mystery and Harry was absorbed in a legal magazine when the paper thumped on the front steps.

"Want me to grab that, Dad?"

"No, I will."

Harry got up and went down the stairs. He returned with the paper under his arm, poured a cup of tea and opened up the paper.

Only to spit his first sip of tea all over the table when he got a look at the front page.

"Harry! What's wrong?" Ginny asked, hurrying over.

Harry coughed on tea that had gone down the wrong pipe and couldn't answer. Ginny clapped him on the back, only to stop mid-stroke as her eyes fell on the headline. She froze, like a woman playing statutes. Her eyes widened until it seemed they would fall out onto the table.

"Oh my God," Harry said, his face now going white.

"Isn't that &… I can't believe&…"" Ginny's eyes went to Al. "Oh, honey—"

"What's the matter?" Al asked.

"Mr Craven," Harry managed, still goggling at the paper.

Alarmed now, Al rose and went over to the other side of the table. His eyes fell on the headline and he understood everything. In dark letters it proclaimed:

_FUGITIVE DEATH EATER COMMITS SUICIDE IN RAVEN'S GLEN HOSPITAL._ Below that were two photos. Al had seen both before. The first showed Archibald Craven, six years younger and spryer. It had been taken by a street photographer, and the old man had bought it to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands by chance. The other showed a Death Eater by the name of Severus Snape, sitting behind his desk at Brecon, his cap cocked to one side. If they had found the photograph taken by the street artist, it meant they had been in Snape's house.

Al skimmed the article frantically. No mention of the dead vagrants. But it was only a matter of time before the bodies were found. He could see the headlines now. HORROR IN DEATH EATER'S BASEMENT. BRECON COMMANDER NEVER LOST HIS TOUCH. HE NEVER STOPPED KILLING.

Al Potter was swaying on his feet.

As though from a hundred miles off, echoing faintly, he heard his mother: "Catch him, Harry. He's fainting!"

He was vaguely aware of his father's arms grabbing him, and then Al Potter felt nothing, heard nothing at all.


	27. Chapter 27

27

Howard Kramer was visiting his sister Regina when he saw the paper. He was eating a Danish pastry when the headline caught his eye, and he spit dismembered bits of it all over the table.

"Howie!" Regina cried, getting up hurriedly.

"Unca's chokin', Unca's chokin'," little four-year-old Kari said, with nervous good humour. She joined her mother in clapping Howard on the back.

"Holy Christ almighty," Howard moaned, barely feeling the blows. He was still goggling down at the newspaper. He had told Regina about his puzzlement over Al's great uncle last night, and here he was, staring up at him from the paper.

"What is it, Howard?"

"That man! That's Alvin Potter's uncle!"

"That Death Eater? You're crazy, Howard!"

"But it's him!" Howard said, sweat breaking on his forehead. "I swear it's him!"

Regina stared at the paper long and fixedly. "I can't see how he pulled it off," she said at last. "Just look at those eyes. Those are the eyes of a horrible man."

And Howard Kramer, with the benefit of hindsight, had to agree with her.


	28. Chapter 28

28

Al, pale as window glass, was sitting on the couch between his mother and father. Across from them was a white-haired DCI named Finch.

After the initial shock, Al had expected to be grilled mercilessly by his parents. But they seemed to accept his story with no problems. Harry had offered to call the police himself, but Al did it instead, his voice cracking through the phone as it had done when he was fourteen.

Now, he finished his recital. It didn't take long. He spoke with a mechanical colourlessness that scared Ginny. He was eighteen, true enough, but still a boy in so many ways. This would scar him forever. Snape! She still couldn't believe it herself.

"I read him &… I don't know. Tom Jones, The magnificent Ambersons, Jude the Obscure. We started some stuff by Dickens, but he said Dickens could only be funny when he was being serious and the other way round. We both liked Tom Jones, though."

"And that was three years ago?"

"Yeah. I stopped by to see him from time to time, but after third year I got busy. There was too much homework &… and we had the intercity Cricket League &… things just came up."

"You had less time."

"Yeah, that's right. Making the grades to get into University. I just &… got busy."

"Al finished second in class," Ginny said. "We were so proud."

"I bet you were," Finch said with a warm smile. "I got two kids, both at Greaves Secondary, and they're just about able to maintain their sports eligibility. So you didn't read him any books after you started fourth year?"

"No. Once in a while I'd drop by and read him the paper. He was always interested in the headlines. And the stock pages&… The print on those pages used to drive him bugs hit—sorry, Mum."

Ginny patted his hand.

"I don't know why he was so interested in the stocks, but he was."

"That's how he was getting along," Finch said. "He had a few stocks laid by and he was living off the dividends. He also had five sets of ID stashed around the house. He was a cagey one, all right."

"I suppose he kept his stocks in a safe deposit box somewhere," Al remarked.

"Pardon?" Finch raised his eyebrows. His father also looked confused.

"His stocks, what few were left, were stashed in a lockbox under his bed," Finch answered. "The photo in the paper as Craven was also in there. Why? Did he say he had a safety deposit box somewhere, son?"

"No &… I just thought that was where you kept your stocks." He shook his head in a dazed way that was perfectly genuine. "I don't know &… this whole thing has just blown my wheels."

He really was dazed. Yet little by little, his instinct for self-preservation was resurfacing, and with it a growing confidence. If Snape really had a safety deposit box to store his insurance document, wouldn't he also have transferred his remaining stock certificates there? And that photograph?

"We're working with the MBO on this," Finch said. "Very informal right now, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that bit to yourself if you decide to see any press people, from either side."

"I sort of expected an agent to be here with you," Harry said, speaking for the first time.

"They're all tied up in London right now, trying to bring things to a close," Finch said smoothly. "One of them will probably drop by and talk to you tomorrow, Al. They're real professionals, and it will be a low-pressure situation. Is that okay?"

"I guess so,' Al said, but felt an atavistic dread at the thought of being sniffed over by the same hellhounds that had chased Snape for the last half of his life. Snape had a healthy respect for them, and Al himself had heard stories growing up. Quite impossible not to.

"Mr and Mrs Potter? Do you have any objection to Al talking to an MBO agent or two?"

"Not if Al doesn't," Harry said. "I know a few of them and I know they won't badger him too much. But I'm going to insist that they remember that Al was trying to help that old man. He was flying under false colours, but Al didn't know that."

"I don't think you have anything to worry about. Like I said, these people are real professionals. Al was just an innocent bystander and they'll keep that in mind."

"It's okay, Dad. I'll do my part."

"Well, I've finished my own questions, so I'll break a little ground by telling you what the MBO is most interested in. Al was with Snape the night he had his heart attack."

"Yes. He got a letter and he called me up to come over and read it to him."

"We know." Finch leaned forward. "The MBO wants to know about that letter. Snape was the last actual Death Eater, but there are plenty of sympathisers still around, and some of them might be rallying to start a new cause. They might think using Snape as a figurehead would lend them legitimacy. The MBO wants to know if the letter he got was from any of those sympathisers."

Al, who had gone back to Snape's house and burned the letter, said: "I'd like to help you if I could, Inspector Finch, but I can't remember a thing about it. I think it was spelled to make me forget it as soon as I read it. I do remember that Mr Craven &… Snape, I mean &… kept getting excited and once he said something like "yes, that is what you'd do isn't it?" This was like three minutes before he had the heart attack." He put an uncertain look on his face as he faced Finch, inwardly quite pleased with this lie.

Finch looked at Harry, eyebrows raised.

"Yes," Harry said, "I can see that happening. It is possible to spell documents like that. It was how we kept magic books out of the hands of non-magicals for so many years. They would read the book and instantly forget about it, or it would translate into something else in their minds."

Finch nodded. "I can see that. But we have a problem. The letter itself, Al—do you remember what happened to it?"

"No," Al said slowly. "As far as I know it's still on the table. I didn't think about it after, you know, the heart attack."

"Yes, I saw a letter on the table when I was there," Harry said. "I didn't do more than glance at it before the ambulance came. Airmail stationary with an American postmark, that's all I remember."

"Then it should still be there," Al said, shrugging.

"That's the problem," Finch said. "It isn't."

"It isn't?" Al asked, pretending to be puzzled.

"Maybe somebody broke in," Ginny suggested.

"There was no need for that. The door was never locked in the hurry to get Snape to the hospital. His latchkey was still in his pocket.

"Well, there you go then," Harry said.

"No, I see what's bugging Inspector Finch," Al said. Yes, indeed, he could see it very well. "Why would a burglar steal nothing but a letter, especially one he couldn't read? It doesn't &… listen, Mr Craven—Snape, I mean &… geez—didn't have much to steal, but a housebreaker could find something more interesting than a letter."

"You got it, all right. Not bad at all, son."

"Al used to want to be a detective or an Auror when he grew up," Ginny said, and ruffled Al's hair. Since he had gotten big he started objecting to that, but now it didn't seem to bother him at all. She hated to see him so pale. "I guess he's changed his field to anthropology these days."

"That's a good field to get into. See lots of far-flung tribes and things. I just wish my own boys had ambitions higher than seeing who would win against United this year."

Al offered a smile but said nothing.

"Anyway," Finch said, serious again, "I'll tell you the theory we're working on. We think someone around here knew the truth about Snape. Someone right here in one of the three towns, or up in Bristol. And that Mr X just scooted right over to Snape's house and stole that letter."

"That doesn't make much sense either, though."

"Why not, Al?"

"If &… if someone knew the truth and wanted to communicate with him, why bother writing a letter at all? Why not just show up at the house?"

"A good point. Except maybe this Mr X was just a go-between or something, or he was in a wheelchair or otherwise disabled."

Al shrugged to show his scepticism about the idea. Finch had progressed into the land of farfetched melodrama. And it didn't really matter, did it? What mattered was that he was sniffing around &… and the damn Mudbloods were sniffing around too. That god damn letter &… Snape's stupid god damn idea!

And suddenly he was thinking about his wand, snug in his front pocket, its handle nicely wrapped in imitation leather.

He pulled his mind away from it quickly. The palms of his hands had gone damp.

"Did Snape have any friends that you knew of?" Finch was asking.

"Friends? Not that I knew. There used to be a cleaning lady, but she moved. Exeter, I think. And there were a few lawn boys, but he hasn't hired one this year. Lawn is rather shaggy, isn't it?"

"Yes, it sure is. We knocked on doors up and down the street and it doesn't look as if he's hired anyone. Did he get phone calls?"

"Sure," Al said, with the perfect note of offhand casualness. "He got a couple calls a week." Here was an escape hatch that was somewhat safe. Snape's phone had actually only rung a few times during the years Al knew him—telemarketers, a polling organisation asking about television shows and of course, the ubiquitous wrong number. Snape really only had gotten the phone in case he got sick, which he finally had &… may his black, stinking soul rot in hell.

"Do you remember anything about those calls?" Finch asked quickly. He seemed excited by something, and suddenly Al was cautious again. There was something wrong about Finch's excitement &… something dangerous. Al had to work hard to keep from breaking into a nervous sweat.

"No. He didn't talk much at all. I remember once he said something like 'I can't talk much. The boy who reads to me is here'."

"I bet that's it!" Finch exclaimed, slapping his hands on his thighs. "I bet two weeks' pay that was the blighter!" He snapped his note book shut (so far as Al had seen, all he'd done was doodle in it) and looked at Harry. "I just have one question. I'm given to understand you knew the man, Mr Potter. Do you know why you didn't recognise him?"

Harry closed his eyes and ran his hands tiredly over his face. "I keep asking myself the same question. I was in classes with him for four years, I fought him a couple of different times, and I even saw him as he was leaving the Brecon camp. And I didn't recognise him, even as old as he got, living without magic. I guess the only reason why is I wasn't expecting to see him here &… not here in these quiet little towns. One usually sees what he expects to see, Inspector. When you are walking down a road and hear hoof beats around the bend, your first thought is usually horses. But it could be zebras or wildebeests, right? I wasn't expecting to see zebras or wildebeests &… and that's why I guess I didn't recognise him."

Finch nodded; his manner sympathetic. "I understand, Mr Potter. Believe me." He stood up. "I want to thank all of you for taking the time to talk to me. You especially, Al. I know this has come as one hell of a shock, but it will all be over soon. We're going back tomorrow with all the special teams from London, and we're going to turn that house upside down from attic to cellar and back again. We might find a trace of Snape's mysterious caller yet."

"I sure hope so," Al said.

Finch shook hands all around and left. Then there was a brief silence in the Potter house.

"I still can't believe it," Harry muttered. "We had the fucker right here at our kitchen table and none of us had a clue."

Ginny did not reprimand him for his language; a real indicator of how shocking the whole thing was.

"I was at his house reading to him &… he could've done anything."

"I don't blame you, Al. You have no history at all with him. Listen &… why don't we go out back and hit some tennis balls around? Kind of a distraction before lunch. What do you say?"

Al sighed, said he didn't feel much like tennis or lunch, and headed up the stairs, head down and shoulders slumped. His parents exchanged troubled glances. How could they help him?

When he got upstairs, Lily was standing in the hall by the bathroom.

"Al, are you all right?"

"Sure, sis, why do you ask?"

"Gee, I don't know," she said, a little sarcastic. "We find out that the old man you used to read to was one of the worst Death Eaters, and that you used to spend hours and hours in his house. Why wouldn't I ask?"

"He wasn't a Death Eater. Just a broken down old man who needed help with the paper," Al said. "I keep that in mind and I'll be okay."

She gave him a troubled glance. "Still &… You don't look good."

Says the girl who let that arsehole Scorpius fuck her in a god damn field and got knocked up and now has to make Jackson Pollock in the loo every fucking morning, Al thought. She and Maggy Thomas ought to get together. Exchange tips. Couple of little sluts, that's all they were.

He restrained with an almost Herculean effort an urge to grab his sister and scream into her face: "Just leave me the fuck alone!"

"I'll be okay. Don't worry."

She gave him a last, troubled look and headed downstairs. She didn't quite believe him, but her stomach was a misery and she wanted some ginger tea and crackers.

Al lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. Downstairs he could hear his parents murmured voices coming in through the air vents. James was still asleep; he had worked the night shift.

He found himself thinking of his wand, which was now on his desk. He could see it very clearly in his mind's eye. He thought of shoving the polished thirteen inches into Maggy Thomas's slimy, half-breed cooze—just what she needed; a prick that never went soft. He heard himself asking her: How do you like that, Maggy? You just tell me when you've had enough, okay? He heard her screams. You just tell me, you bitch. Okay? Okay?

# # #

Hermione Granger had not acquitted herself—at least by her more mature way of thinking—very well in the war. After it had ended, though, she had thought she was top of the world. Nothing was going to be closed to her now. She was a heroic Muggle-born who had fought against terrible injustice with her two friends and had triumphed, against all odds.

She had first applied for a position working for the Department of Mysteries. She loved research; both she and her friends thought it was the perfect job for her. Custom fitted, as it were.

The rude wake-up call had come during the interview process. The interviewer had torn her academic career to shreds, telling her that she was incapable of original thought, that she wasn't at all suited for innovative thinking befitting a researcher. In third year she had been given a tool if incalculable value—the time turner—and the only thing she had used it for was to go to classes. The Unspeakables had authorised her use of it for select students whom they thought had potential, and the only thing she did with it was school work. No extra time to research. No analysing the time turner to see how it worked and could be improved. No unauthorised trips to Hogsmeade. Therefore, she was incapable of breaking out of a mould and doing anything on her own.

In fourth year, she had jumped headlong into a campaign to free house-elves, without bothering to ask their opinion on the matter, or to see if it could even be done. Yet when it came to the one free house-elf she knew who was not adjusting well to her new state—Winky—she had done absolutely nothing.

During her attempts to help Harry Potter with the Triwizard Tournament, she restricted herself to information found in non-restricted books in the Hogwarts library. No inventing spells or altering them, when she had been studying Arithmancy to do just that. No attempts to get into the Restricted Section, despite the certain knowledge that the other champions, being at least two years older than Potter, had access to that information. And as a result, Potter won the tournament by sheer blind luck and the assistance of the fake Mad-Eye Moody.

During the war, she had not come up with new ways to combat Death Eaters. When she, Weasley and Potter had been captured, her only way of disguising them was stinging hexes to the face, despite the possibility that it might have caused more problems than it would help and would've served to call even more attention to them.

"And you want us to take you on? I don't think so, Miss Granger. Get out of my office."

At first she had gone home and cried. She was the brightest witch of her age. How dare they do that to her?

Then, she got herself together and realised they were correct. She had really accomplished nothing except getting high test scores. She made a vow to herself that she would make her mark on the world, and that she would henceforth be something other than a Know-it-all bookworm.

She got together a number of other Muggle-borns and started her own organisation, the Muggle-borns against Oppression (MBO), whose main mission in life was to see that the purebloods never got so out of control again. She listened to their opinions instead of making decisions unanimously and without input. She asked around and found out what the other Muggle-borns wanted to see happen, what reforms they wanted pushed through. And then she and the organisation saw to it that it was done. They rounded up all the Death Eaters and sent them through the veil, because an example needed to be made. People did not deserve to be penalised for a crime of birth.

Now, as she sat at a sidewalk cafe not far from Harry's house waiting for Inspector Finch to finish interviewing them, she reflected on the total surprise of finding Severus Snape in this impossibly bucolic West Country setting. That Harry's son had apparently read to the man in his dotage was also a shock. The irony was almost funny. Snape, one of the most vicious Death Eaters&… being read to by the grandson of his most hated enemy. Ha, ha! Who woulda thunk it?

Hermione finished her coffee just as the battered old Citroen pulled up. She got in, and Finch took off again.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked.

"I think the kid's involved in it somehow," Finch said, without any preamble.

Hermione almost dropped her purse. "What?" She had helped change Al when he was a baby, had bounced him on her knee, and introduced him to books and movies from her own childhood. And he was involved in this &… this mess? No way.

"Oh yeah &… Somehow, someway, he's involved. But is he cool? Man, if I poured water in his mouth he'd spit out ice cubes. I tripped him up a few times, but it isn't anything that would stand up in court. I didn't dare push much harder because some smart-arse lawyer might get him off on entrapment further down the line. Since he got involved with the old fellow before he turned eighteen, they'd insist he be tried as a juvenile. But I'd guess this kid hasn't been a juvenile since he was eight or so. He's creepy."

Hermione wanted to bridle at this smug little DCI for calling one of her favourite kids creepy, but she bit her tongue. The guy had no agenda here. He didn't know that Hermione was a family friend. As far as he knew, she was here because, as head of the MBO, she wanted to be around when they captured the last Death Eater.

"What slips did he make?"

"Phone calls. That was the big thing. When I slipped him that idea, his eyes lit up like a damn Christmas tree." Finch wheeled the nondescript car onto the motorway. Two hundred yards to their right was the slope where Al had pretended to fire on motorists on a Saturday not long ago.

"So he's thinking to himself, 'this copper's off his rocker if he thinks Snape has a Death Eater sympathiser here in town. Having one already here is stretching the limits of credibility. But if he thinks that, it takes me off the hook.' So he says yeah, Snape got one or two phone calls a week. Can't talk much, somebody's here, blah, blah. Very mysterious. Except it's bullshit. We pulled his phone records, and the phone probably only rang a few times over the past seven years. Guy wasn't getting one or two calls a week at any point."

"What else?"

"He immediately jumped to the conclusion that the letter was gone and nothing else. And the only way he could jump to that conclusion was because he was the one who went back and stole it."

Hermione wanted to argue, but the man's logic was inexorable. And suddenly, she wasn't sure she wanted to know any more. Had she been privy to Reginald Cattermole's run of thoughts about the old story of the monkey's paw, she would've agreed wholeheartedly and wished to end this little adventure without digging any further. But she had a duty, both to herself and to the organisation, to see this thing through. There was no hiding from it. No matter what slimy things might crawl out from the stones they overturned, she must continue.

"We think the letter was just a prop," Finch was saying, now puffing a shitty smelling Turkish cigarette. Hermione wanted to gag. "We think Snape had the heart attack while he was trying to bury the body &… the freshest body, I mean. That means he called the kid after, not before, the heart attack. There was dirt on his shoes and pants cuffs, so it's a pretty reasonable assumption.

"So he crawls up the stairs and calls the kid. The kid flips out—as much as he ever does, anyway—and cooks up the letter story off the cuff. It's not a great story, but pretty good, considering. He goes over there and cleans up Snape's mess for him. Now he's in overdrive. The ambulance is coming, his father's coming, and he needs to set the stage. He goes upstairs and breaks open that box—"

"You got confirmation on that?"

"Oh yeah. Confirmation right up the line. His fingerprints are all over it. Of course, his fingerprints are all over the house, so that won't mean much in court."

"Maybe if you confronted him with that, you could get the real story."

"Oh hey, when I say this kid is cool, I mean it. He'd say Snape asked him to fetch the box once or twice to take something or put something in it. If we confronted him with his prints on the shovel, he'd say Snape asked him to plant a rose bush in the back garden. He's one cool customer."

Hermione sighed. She knew that was true. Al was a bright boy. And she suspected sometimes that he had hidden depths. But she had no idea&…

"I know the family," Hermione said. "I grew up with both Harry and Ginny and I have known all three of their kids since they were babies and I find it hard to believe &… Al is by far the most normal of them, you know? He's clean cut and he did well in school and&…"

"You knew them? Did you ever have any indication that any of this was going on?"

"Not a one. I wasn't around a lot in the past few years dealing with organisation business, but as far as I knew, they were all okay &… Especially Al. His brother had his own troubles with the law, but nothing involving this."

"Yes, I saw those files before coming out here. They do say it's always the quiet ones, don't they?"

"What I'd like to know is why Al got himself mixed up with a man like Snape, knowing his own family's history. I mean, he was just thirteen when all of this started. I have tried and tried to understand it and still I can't."

"I'd settle for how," Finch said, and threw his cigarette out the window.

"Maybe it was just coincidence &… a kind of black serendipity," Hermione said, now toying with her fingers restlessly in her lap. "I think that sometimes does happen, bad turns of fate as well as good. I'm usually an optimist but&…""

"I don't know," Finch said. "All I know is—and I'm sorry for saying this—but that kid is as creepy as a bug under a rock. Really."

"Well. Maybe you're right. I certainly had no idea. Al, probably by sheer dumb luck, penetrates Snape's cover. And any other kid when faced with such a situation, he would go to his parents and the police, right? Today, I recognised a wanted man. He is living at this address. Then the authorities would take over."

"Any other kid, but not this one," Finch agreed. "He'd probably get a school award for good citizenship. Get his picture in the paper. Any other kid would love that."

"Yes indeed. But instead he goes to Snape. Why? You say you don't care, but I think you do. I think it haunts you just as it does me."

"Not for blackmail," Finch said. "That kid has everything a kid could want. He's the son of a famous and rich war hero, well-liked by everybody, the whole world in front of him. And even if he decided to squeeze Snape just for the hell of it, Snape was practically unsqueezeable. Aside from those few stocks, the man barely had a pot to piss in."

"You're sure Al doesn't know you've found the bodies?"

"Pretty sure. Maybe I'll go back in a while and hit him with that. Tomorrow, after the big forensic team gets here." Finch hit the steering wheel lightly. "I just wish all of this had come out a day sooner. Then I could've tried for a search warrant."

"The clothes he was wearing that night?"

"Yeah. Except they've probably been washed six times by then."

"Or he could've just spelled them clean."

"That too &… I keep forgetting about that."

Finally, Hermione brought out what she had been wondering about. No use hiding from it.

"What about the other derelicts, the ones your department have been finding around here?"

"Those belong to David Grant. I don't think there's a connection. Snape wasn't that strong &… and more to the point, He already had a neat little racket worked out. Probably he did something like offer them a meal and a bed and bring them home on the city bus—the city bus!—and wasted them right there in his kitchen."

With great reluctance and feeling chills up and down her spine, Hermione said: "It wasn't Snape I was thinking of."

"What do you mean by th—" then Finch's mouth snapped closed.

There was a beat of unbelieving silence, broken only by the sound of the traffic all around them. Then Finch said, in a slow, incredulous voice: "Hey &… hey now, you can't mean—"

"As an agent of my organisation," Hermione said, "I am only interested in Al insofar as he might have information he might have on Snape's ties with dark sympathisers underground. But as a human being and friend of the family, I am becoming very interested in the boy himself. I wonder what makes him tick. Because the boy I thought I knew bears no resemblance to the boy we are considering before us. And as I try to answer that question to my own satisfaction, I begin to wonder what else."

"But—"

"Suppose," Hermione said, now speaking as though with a great effort, "Suppose, the very atrocities in which Snape took part formed some kind of attraction between them? That's a bit of an unholy idea, I know, but what if it happened that way? The things that went on in those camps still has the power to turn my stomach. I was there when they liberated Brecon, and I still see those terrible things in my dreams, even though I only was there after everything happened. But maybe there is something about what those Death Eaters and the Nazis before them did that exercises a kind of deadly fascination over us. Maybe part of our dread and horror stems from the dim realisation that, under the right—or wrong—set of circumstances, we ourselves could be called upon to build and staff such places. Black serendipity&… And what do you think those hypothetical builders and staffers would look like?"

Finch was watching Hermione with a kind of hypnotised fascination, but Hermione wasn't really aware; she was gazing off into the near distance, her face set. "I don't know," Finch said.

"I don't think they would look much like mad dark lords with snake-like faces and red eyes. No, I think not. They would probably look like ordinary accountants, ready with calculator minds to start maximising the kill ratios so that next time they could kill twenty million instead of sixty thousand. And, as I think of Al, I think some of them might look a lot like him." Hermione felt her arms prickle with gooseflesh.

"You're damn near as creepy as he is," Finch said, looking at Hermione askance. She was clutching her arms tightly across her breasts, as if for protection.

"It's a creepy subject," she said. "Finding those dead men and animals in Snape's cellar &… that was creepy, yes? I think maybe Al went to Snape with a normal boy's fascination with such things, like any boy fascinated with reading about American cowboys, or coin collecting, or trading cards &… Just ordinary morbid little boy curiosity at first. So he went to Snape to get his information straight from the horse's mouth."

"At this point, I could believe anything," Finch said, shaking his head.

"Maybe," Hermione muttered, almost drowned out by a passing cargo truck. "And maybe it isn't possible to stand close to murder piled upon murder and not be touched by it."


	29. Chapter 29

29

The short guy who walked into the police station in Raven's Glen brought stench behind him like a wake behind a boat. He smelled like rotten pineapples, rancid peanut oil and the inside of a rubbish collection truck on a busy morning. He was wearing a pair of ripped grey institutional pants, a tattered green jumper that was more grey than green, and a light windcheater from which the zipper hung like a string of broken teeth. A yellowing billed cap perched askew on his oily hair, like the cap adorning a scarecrow of the worst farmer in the county.

"Jesus Christ!" the duty sergeant cried waving a hand in front of his face. "You're not under arrest, Clango! I swear it on my mother's name! Now get out of here. I want to breathe again!"

"I want to talk to Inspector Grant."

"He died yesterday. We're all fucked up over it. Now get out of here and let us mourn in peace!"

"I want to talk to Inspector Grant!" Clango said, louder. His breath, a soupy mixture of old pizza, older beer and sweet red wine, drifted out of his mouth.

"He had to go to Paris on a case, Clango. Get out of here and play in traffic, why don't you?"

"I want to talk to Inspector Grant and I ain't leaving until I do!"

The desk Sergeant, realising it was hopeless, got up and practically ran behind the bullpen toward the Inspectors' offices. He returned in short order with Grant, a stoop-shouldered man of about sixty. "Take this guy to your office, mate, why don't you? There's a good lad," the sergeant said.

"Come on, Clango," Grant said, and ushered the reeking spec of humanity back to the three-sided cubicle that was his office. He prudently opened his only window before sitting down, and also turned on the fan.

"You still on them murders, Inspector?"

"The derelicts? Reckon that's still mine, aye," Grant said, lighting his pipe. Neither the window nor the fan seemed to be doing much to combat Clango's aroma.

"Well, I know who done it," Clango said, a kind of fuzzy pride in his voice.

"That so?" Pretty soon, Grant thought, the paint in here would begin to peel and blister. He sighed.

"You 'member me tellin' you 'bout how Blocky was talkin' a this guy afore they foun' him all cut up in that pipe? You 'member me tellin' ya that, Inspector Grant?"

"I remember." Several of the derelicts who hung around the Salvation Army over in Godric's Hollow, or the soup kitchen here in Raven's Glen had reported that they had seen a guy with two of the murdered derelicts, Richard "Blocky" Gourse and Andrew "Ace" McDonald. They thought they had seen a guy, a youngish guy, walking off with them, but couldn't say for sure. Clango and a few others had gotten the idea that the guy was underage and was willing to trade cash for a bottle of whisky. The descriptions he had gotten so far were superb, and were definitely going to stand up in court, coming as it did from such unimpeachable sources. Young, black haired, and white. What else did you need to make a bust?

"Well, last night I was over in the park, and I just happened a have this buncha ol' newspapers—"

"There's a law against vagrancy in this town," Clango.

"I was just collectin' 'em up," Clango said, affecting the self-righteous tones of a saint. "It's so awful the way some people litter. I was doon a public surface, Inspector!"

"Yes, Clango," Grant sighed. He remembered that before this guy came in he had been thinking about going to lunch. That seemed ages ago now.

"Well, when I woke up one a them papers had blowed on my face and I was lookin' right at the bloke. Gave me a hell of a turn, Inspector. Look. This is him. This fella right here!"

Clango pulled out a tattered old newsprint page from his coat pocket. Grant, now somewhat interested, leaned forward. The headline read: _4 BOYS SELECTED BY SUSSEX COUNTY CRICKET CLUB_.

"Which one, Clango?"

Clango jabbed a dirty finger at the boy in the far right photo underneath the headline. "It's this guy, on the far right. It says his name is Alvin Potter."

Grant looked from the picture to Clango, wondering how many of Clango's brain cells were still in some kind of working order after twenty years of being simmered in a briskly bubbling stew of wine, cheap whisky and whatever illicit drugs might be floating around the streets at a given time.

"How can you tell, Clango? He's wearing a cap. You can't tell if he has black hair or not."

"It's the way he's smilin'," Clango said, nodding. "I couldn't ever f'get that grin, Inspector. He was grinnin' at Blocky in jus' that ain't-life-so-grand way when he walked off wi' him. I'm tellin' ya. This is the guy."

Grant barely heard this last. He was thinking hard. Potter &… Alvin Potter. He had heard that name before &… and it troubled him. Somewhere in conversation just that morning, in fact&… He knew of the boy's father, of course—didn't everybody? But something about Alvin Potter bothered him, something more than the idea that a local Cricket hero and decorated veteran's son might be going around offing hobos and tramps. What was it?

Clango was long gone, and Grant was still trying to remember, when he heard Finch and Hermione Granger re-enter the police station and go for coffee. Hearing their voices jarred the memory loose, and David Grant paled and sat up in a hurry.

"Holy God," he muttered, and almost ran out of his office.

# # #

For a change, everybody was at home on this Saturday afternoon. Lily and James were upstairs napping (James because he had worked night shift and Lily because who knew why) and his parents were in the den, curled up watching a movie. Curled up together on the sofa ... How cute&…

When Al had finally come down they were in the kitchen. Harry had looked at him, but seemed unable to find something to say.

"Al," he said, and then stopped. He supposed that if he was Vernon Dursley, he'd advise Al to just forget about it and pretend it never happened. But that never worked. Ignoring magic hadn't made it disappear from the Dursleys' lives; ignoring Voldemort had not made him disappear from the wizarding world; and ignoring the problems in his marriage and family had not made them go away, either. Ignoring them had in fact, made them a lot worse. You had to face them head on. But how did you tell your son to face something like this?

"Sometimes things like this happen. Try not to brood about it," he said, fully aware of how lame it sounded, especially coming from him. He was the king of brooding at his son's age. And Al was a lot like him. Only the better version. So maybe it would actually work, this advice.

"Sure, Dad &… It'll be all right."

Ginny had come over and hugged him, and even Lily had. Al had accepted with good grace, but another headache was buzzing behind his eyelids.

The den and bedrooms were on the opposite side of the house from the garage, and Al went out there just after one o'clock. There was a whole wand servicing and manufacturing area in one corner, from the days when Harry had tinkered with the idea of going into the field. Al brought his wand out of his front sweat shirt pocket and began to service it. He moved mechanically, automatically, from one area to the next—oiling, polishing, output measuring—a whole ritual. His mind wandered free.

When he came back to himself five minutes later, he saw that he had fitted an extender on his wand. This was a nifty little gadget that the hit wizards had come up with ten years ago. It allowed the caster to be more than kissing distance close when casting a spell. You could, in fact, be almost a quarter mile away, if you wanted to be. It worked by concentrating the spell and propelling it to the distance calibrated on the little meter, sort of like a Muggle range finder. Of course, not just anybody could have one of these little babies, but his father had clout and he got whatever the hell he wanted. Sure.

He looked at the little gadget jutting from the top of his wand like an afterthought and told himself that he didn't know why he'd fitted it on.

_Sure you do, Al old pal. The time, so to speak, has come._

That was when the bright yellow Fiat turned into the driveway, puttering along with its sewing machine engine.

When it pulled to a stop, a figure got out that Al didn't at first recognise. It wasn't until it came out of the bright sunlight shining into his eyes that he saw it was Duckie Howie Kramer, the Quackman.

"Hi, Al. Long time no see."

Al casually put the newly-refurbished wand on the workbench behind him and offered his wide, winsome grin. "Hi, Mr Kramer. What brings you down to the wild West Country?"

"Are your parents home?"

"No," Al lied. Did you want them for something?" He hoped to heaven they didn't come out here and see Kramer standing in their driveway. That would not be good at all.

"No," Duckie Howie said, after a long, thoughtful pause. "I think it'd be best if you and I spoke first. For starters, anyway. You might be able to offer a reasonable explanation for all this. Although Merlin knows I doubt it."

He reached into his pocket and brought out a newspaper clipping. Al knew what it was even before Kramer passed it to him. For the second time that day, he was looking at the two side by side pictures of Snape. The one taken by the street photographer had been circled in red ink. The meaning was clear. Kramer had recognized Al's great uncle. And now he wanted to tell the world all about it. To make like an elephant and trumpet the news ... Duckie Howie, with his faux hip talk and his motherfucking quacky lips.

The police would be very interested—but of course, they already were. He knew that now. A sinking feeling had started to develop a half hour or so after Finch had left. It was as though he had developed a large balloon of happiness inside him, but someone had pierced it with a large arrow.

The phone calls. That was the main thing. Finch had trotted that out, just as slick as warm owl shit. Sure, he gets one or two phone calls a week. Let them go wandering around Britain looking for old Death Eater sympathisers and waste their time. Right.

Except maybe they'd gotten a different story from British Telecom. Al wasn't sure if they could find out how often a given phone had rung, but Finch had a strange look in his eyes&…

Then there was the letter. He had told Finch that it hadn't made sense for a burglar to steal only a letter. That would lead Finch to the conclusion that the only way Al could've known that was because Al had gone back and taken it himself. He had gone back three times, once to burn that letter and twice more to make sure there was nothing else incriminating lying about. There wasn't; even the Death Eater uniform was gone, disposed of by Snape at some point over the past four years or so.

And then there were the bodies. Finch had never mentioned the bodies; not a word.

At first Al had thought this was a good thing. Let them hunt around a little longer while he got his head—and his story—straight. No fear about the dirt and blood he had gotten on his clothes; he had done a cleaning spell before his father came and again later that night. And he had run them through the washer, just to be safe, fully aware that Snape might die and then everything would come out. _You can't be too careful, boy,_ as Snape would've said.

Then, little by little, he had realized that it was not good after all. The weather had been unusually warm—temperatures hovering around 27 Celsius over the past week. When the weather was warm, the cellar always smelled worse; on his last trip to Snape's house it had been a rank miasma. Surely the police would've been very interested in that smell and tracked it to the source&… Of course they would; that was how the police operated. Always tracking things&…

So why hadn't Finch mentioned the bodies? Was he perhaps saving it back? Saving it for a nasty little surprise, like a knockout punch that came when your back was turned? And if Finch was into saving back little surprises, it could only mean that he suspected.

Al looked up from the clipping. Duckie Howie was half turned away, staring at the open field across from the Potter house. Nothing much was happening out there.

Finch might suspect, but suspicion was all he had.

Unless they could find some kind of concrete link tying him to the old man.

Exactly the kind of link Duckie Howie could give. Such a ridiculous man, a ridiculous man who looked like a ridiculous web-footed fowl. Such a ridiculous man hardly deserved to live.

Al's hand stole out and caressed the handle of his wand.

Yes, Duckie Howie was a link they didn't have. Without him, they could prove nothing, but with his testimony, they could prove conspiracy. And would even that be the end? No, probably not. They might take his picture and show it around the Salvation Army or the soup kitchen or even up in Bristol, where he'd gone once or twice. _If we can't pin one bunch of vagrants on him, maybe we can get him for the other._

What next? Court next. His father would get him a wonderful bunch of lawyers, of course. And they would get him off, of course. He was the son of a hero with a lot of clout &… and there was still too much circumstantial evidence. And he would make too favourable impression on the jury.

But it would ruin his life all the same, just as Snape had said. It would be picked over in the newspapers and on people's lips and he would never get a moment's peace. It would be dragged up into the light over and over again, like the half-decayed bodies in Snape's cellar. His brother and sister would also be hounded, just like Al had been. When his brother had picked on that little fourth year, and later when he had got his dumb arse arrested, there had been whispers and sidelong glances from people in the hallways. People storing up scandals, wondering what the youngest Potter son might be planning. And just wait until Lily gave birth and her brat went to school. They would be wondering what it might get up to, wouldn't they?

"That man in the newspaper is the same man who came into my office in your third year," Duckie Howie said abruptly, turning from his perusal of the field and facing Al. "He claimed to be your great uncle. Now it turns out he's a wanted Death Eater."

"Yes," Al said. His face had gone blank; it had all the expression of a department store mannequin. All the healthiness and vivacity had fled from it. It was frightening in its vacuous emptiness.

"How did it happen?" Perhaps it had meant to come out as a thundered accusation, but Howard only sounded plaintive, lost and somehow cheated. "How did this happen, Al?"

"Oh, you know how it goes," Al said. "One thing just followed another." He picked up his wand and pointed it at Duckie Howie. "As stupid as it sounds, that's really just how it happened. That's all there was to it."

"Al," Howard said, his eyes widening. He took a step backward. In his shock he never considered reaching for his own wand. "Please, Al. There's no need for &… we can discuss—"

"You and the Death Eater can discuss it down in Hell," Al said, and he said the incantation. "Muertacorozón." It rolled off his lips like butter.

There was a brisk popping sound from inside Duckie Howie's chest, like the sound of a rotten watermelon being stricken with a hammer. His ribs exploded in a spray of gore as the pressure bulged them outward. One of his shirt buttons popped off and hit Al over the eyebrow. He barely noticed it.

"Gagh," Howie said, and collapsed on the driveway. His shoes drummed a brief tattoo on the gravel, and then lay still. There was a bad stink.

_Wow. Sure did die messily for a guidance counsellor,_ Al thought, and giggled. At the same moment a bright spike of pain as sharp as an ice pick drilled into his brain behind his right eye. He closed them for a brief moment.

When he opened his eyes next, he felt better than he had for months—maybe for years. The blank emptiness left his face and it filled with a kind of wild beauty.

He went back into the garage and cleaned up the workstation, a task which took him about three minutes. When he came back out again, he was smiling a broad, excited smile. It was the smile of a boy thinking about Christmas, or his birthday, or the firecrackers he will shoot off on Guy Fawkes day. It was the smile of the boy who had helped bring the team to the championship victory, who was now going to be carried out of the stadium on the shoulders of the exultant fans, amidst a sea of waving pennants.

"I'm king of the whole world!" He bellowed up at the sky, doing a quick little burlesque twirl.

Then, he climbed into Duckie Howie's Fiat and headed for the greenbelt at the north end of town, for that area above the motorway where the land fell away, and where the dead tree would give him shelter.

It was four hours later and almost dark before they took him down.

The End

In case you hadn't guessed, the story this was based on is called _Apt Pupil._ It is my answer to all those mentor Snape fics out there. I haven't ever seen anything like it, and, as I said in the intro, when I came across the story again this year, I saw the possibilities right away. Thanks once again to Stephen King for inspiration.


End file.
